Northern Exchange Cold War Histories and Nuclear Futures was a social art project that took place during August 2016 in four Icelandic communities: Höfn, Keflavík, Bolungarvík, Þórshöfn. The project combined public engagement, conversations and collaboration among many people — artists, university students, the general public and, importantly, members of each of the communities where we worked.  The communities all hosted early warning radar stations that formed part of NATO’s extensive early warning defence system across North America and Europe during the Cold War period and continuing into the present time. Conversation and discussion formed the heart of our project, giving it meaning, purpose and momentum. The stories we collected give personal insight into the early warning radar sites which were operated by the American military, and extend our sense of the Cold War period not only as it exists physically in the northern landscape but in the memory. 

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You can find out more about the project, see more  photographs and read excerpts from interviews with people from the four communities on our Weblog and in our publication, which you can read here.