Mjúkar mælingar

Einkasýning í Sláturhúsinu Menningarmiðstöð Egilsstöðum.

Soft Measurements of the Aesthetic Value of Landscape

by Guðbjörg R Jóhannesdóttir

In her soft measurements of the aesthetic value of the Lagarfljót landscape, Selma Hreggviðsdóttir engaged in conversations with several people who live and dwell by the river. These conversations shed light on the beauty, the relations, and the color they lost from their lives following the changes that occurred in Lagarfljót after the construction of the
Kárahnjúkar Hydropower Plant. Before the dam, Lagarfljót and its environment formed a landscape that was characterized by certain phenomena, impressions, and aesthetic qualities that together constituted its aesthetic value.

In recent years, I have conducted research with the geographer Edda R.H. Waage on the aesthetic value of such landscapes for the expert committee within the Master Plan for Nature Protection and Energy Utilization that assesses the value of natural and cultural heritage, as well as the impact of proposed power plants on those values. Our research, based
on qualitative interviews and participant observations, aims to shed light on the phenomena,
impressions, and aesthetic qualities that characterize particular landscapes, in order to better understand their value and role in people’s lives. Like Selma, we speak with those who live and dwell in the landscape under study, asking about their relationship with the area, their experiences and ideas, to bring forth the phenomena and qualities that hold meaning and
value for them. At the time leading up to the Kárahnjúkar project, there was no Master Plan
in place. No one asked the people living by Lagarfljót what it meant to them, and there was very limited vocabulary for discussing the importance of the aesthetic value of landscape. Despite attempts by artists and other lovers of Icelandic nature to draw attention to the invaluable worth of the landscape and wilderness that would be sacrificed for the project, no one listened. The minister claimed to see no particular natural beauty there—and thus, the
discussion on the landscape’s aesthetic value was dismissed.

Through her soft measurements, Selma asks what the aesthetic value of the Lagarfljót landscape was, and what it meant in people’s lives; she listens to what they lost, and to what those who will never experience the river as it once was are missing. Her research sheds an important light on how energy development affects the aesthetic value of landscape, and contributes to the body of knowledge that Edda and I have sought to build over the past
decade. In our most recent landscape study, we examined for the first time the aesthetic value
of a landscape that had been transformed into an “energy landscape,” in order to better assess
the effects of such projects. Through our research on people’s experiences of living within the Þjórsá–Tungnaá region—dominated by power plants, dams, canals, power lines, roads, and signs—and through Selma’s study of people’s experience in a landscape more distant from such structures, yet transformed by hydropower in other ways, we may all hopefully
gain a deeper understanding of what we are sacrificing for increased energy production.

One of the most precious things we sacrifice for electricity is landscape and wilderness. In Iceland’s National Planning Policy, landscape protection is described as “the preservation and enhancement of landscape quality and local character.” Landscape quality lies in being part of a landscape that nourishes you rather than drains you; that connects you to yourself, to other people, to other beings, to the past and the future, to eternity and to the greater whole we are part of—rather than disconnecting you. In other words, landscape quality is rooted in relations, in sensing relations. Local character consists of the features of a place or area that allow us to perceive it as a whole—a coherent landscape unit. Preserving local character, then, must mean preventing the environment from being altered in a way that breaks this sense of wholeness: a collection of phenomena and processes that belong together
and flow well together, without disrupting or blocking each other.

When the flow of glacial water into Lagarfljót was transformed, the coherence of its landscape unit was broken—and with it, the relationships that the perception of that landscape depended on. Based on Selma’s findings, I assume that the elements most
characteristic of the aesthetic value of this landscape were beauty, the views, and diversity—largely grounded in the color and variation of Lagarfljót itself, as well as the entire setting around it: the interplay between the river, vegetation, mountains, and human life. The derivative values of these elements included opportunities for recreation and the restorative experience of having the opportunity to dwell with the river—through fishing, boating,
hiking, and skating or skiing on the frozen lake. With Kárahnjúkar dam, the color disappeared—and with it, the interplay that formed the core of the Lagarfljót landscape. Edda and I write reports to convey our findings about the features that define the aesthetic value of different landscape types and their derived values, and we constantly seek better ways to give readers a sense of what it feels like to dwell in and perceive the landscapes we describe. Our main tools are our choice of words and narrative form, along with the use of images and direct quotations from our interviewees. As an artist the senses experience—she mediates experience through experience. As an artist, she is the measuring instrument: she searches for color, captures memories, and helps us, through her work, find our own words to describe how we feel when we are fortunate enough to experience natural beauty in our everyday environments.

The knowledge that artists like Selma create through careful studies of the perceptions, experiences, feelings, and sensations that arise within us in response to the environment we are always already part of, in an ongoing reciprocal relationship—reaches us directly through the body, without our having to read reports or visit sites. The role of this
kind of knowledge, when it comes to evaluating the value of the landscapes we are part of and must make decisions about—how to live and act within them as we search for our “home” on this earth—is invaluable, and deserves more space in our discussions of nature conservation and resource use. Selma highlights this role of artistic research in creating knowledge about the value of nature and landscape through her works on Lagarfljót—as is
powerfully reflected in the title of her exhibition, Soft Measurements. Should such measurements be part of environmental impact assessments, as Gunnar Hersveinn suggested in his writings about Sigtryggur Bjarni Baldvinsson’s paintings of rivers and streams? What, after all, is the difference between the artist’s soft sensory measurements of color and the
scientist’s soft sensory measurements of sediment density in water? Ultimately, environmental impact assessment is an assessment of relations—our
assessment of what are appropriate and inappropriate next steps in our relations to the area
being evaluated. We are part of the landscape, part of nature, and that implies the inevitability
of mutual transformation: that we and the land adapt to one another, maintaining a good relationship where all beings of the land—and the land itself—can thrive, be nourished, and follow their natural flow and processes in a healthy way. But we must take great care in deciding our next steps, our movements in the dance we share with the land, so that the dance may continue for a long time to come—and so that future generations, too, may have the chance to dance with the land. Hopefully, we will have the wisdom to learn from the mistakes of the past and to give the aesthetic value of landscape greater weight in decision-making about the hydropower projects that are and will be on the drawing boards in the years and decades ahead.