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Set within field research at the National Archives of Iceland, this
multimodal project explores immigration policy, transnational
migration, and the politics of forgetting. The project is also a
vessel to desire unknowable stories related to Erik’s identity as a
decedent of Holocaust survivors/victims. Foregrounded on the digital
archive prototype that he assembled, The Surveillance of Foreigners in
Iceland (1935-1941), this project uncovers Iceland’s very first
immigration program that knowingly rejected Jewish asylum seekers
during the Holocaust. The lecture performance will feature a
discussion with Sayed Khanoghli, Sanna Magdalena Mörtudóttir, Sema
Erla Serdar, and Wiola Ujazdowska; a poem by Melitta Urbancic, an
Austrian Jewish woman who was one of few Jewish people able to
immigrate to Iceland during the Holocaust, and lyme grass, a
nitrogen-sucking plant whose properties help to rejuvenate damaged
soil.
Special thanks to Julius Rothlaender (archive co-designer), Katherine
Caldwell (English translation of Heimatrecht), Sölvi Björn Sigurðsson
(Icelandic translation of Heimatrecht), LungA School community in
Seyðisfjörður, Sibyl Urbancic, Magnús H. Jóhannsson (from
Landgræðslan), Þjóðskjalasafn Íslands (National Archives of Iceland),
the Jewish Center of Iceland, Kling and Bang, Ana Victoria Bruno,
Becky Forsyth, and Sequences (Þóranna, Þráinn, Helga, Eyja).
Erik DeLuca is an artist and musician working with performance, sculpture, and text, in dialogue with social practice and critique. He has presented at a variety of places including MASS MoCA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Sweet Pass Sculpture Park, The Contemporary Austin, The Living Art Museum (Iceland), Columbia School of the Arts, Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture, CalArts, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Fieldwork: Marfa, and Yale University School of Art. His writing projects are published in Public Art Dialogue (Taylor & Francis), Organised Sound (Cambridge University Press), Leonardo Music Journal (MIT Press), and Mousse. He received a PhD in Music from the University of Virginia (2016), was in Myanmar with the support of an Asian Cultural Council grant (2018), and lectured at the Iceland University of the Arts (2016-2018). He is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at Brown University and a Lecturer in Experimental and Foundation Studies at Rhode Island School of Design.
