Herðubreið- Mountainous geo-power and deep time

• Main Author: Huijbens, E.H.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2024
• Subjects: Life Science; Warden; Iceland
• Online Access: https://research.wur.nl/en/publications/herðubreið-mountainous-geo-power-and-deep-time

The proposed paper is about the tuya mountain Herðubreið in the Northeast central highlands of Iceland and its nonhuman forcefulness penetrating its rendering by the people present at the campsite Herðubreiðarlindir where I was a warden for 10 days in early August this summer. The paper is framed in relation to our current climate and biodiversity crisis and how it is imperative to determine “…how our species understands the natural world and perhaps, most importantly, conceptualises our own place within it.” (Frankopan, 2023, p. 39). Through three vignettes based on photographs of the mountain, the paper explores how geopower intersects with aesthetics through the ways in which the mountain is materially sensed and embodied through the visitors attempting its ascent. The paper will proceed in three parts. The first part following an introduction placing the reader, lays out the speculative realist stance I intend to adopt to make sense of these aesthetic renderings and how these refract around notions of timefulness. The second part offers the three vignettes after a short methodological note. Each vignette starts with an image of the mountain from one of the days I was there. The third and last part before a few concluding points brings timefulness to bear on the speculations offered by the vignettes, reflecting on how the mountain’s planetary materialities afford stories, whichprecede and exceed its discursive framings. I claim that stories such as the ones told of Herðubreið can thus expand our consciousness in the here and now through deep time and thereby mobilise politics and aesthetics of future transformations for the betterment of our culture and liveability on and of the Earth.