GALLERY TOURS: FOG SWEPT CARGO
2024-07-03 17:30 - 18:05 (America/New_York) | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
*Please note that the exhibition tour on June 12, 2024 has been canceled.*
On view from April 13, 2024 to July 6, 2024 at Scandinavia House, Fog Swept Cargo features the striking diversity of contemporary art from the Faroe Islands. In this guided tour by Emily Stoddart, ASF’s Manager of Exhibitions & Community Programs, learn about the artists in this exhibition and their works.
These free, 35-minute public tours meet in the Gallery elevator lobby. Gallery tours are subject to change; please check with the Scandinavia House front desk or email info@amscan.org.
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HOLIDAY CLOSURE
2024-07-04 08:00 - 21:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Scandinavia House will be closed on Thursday, July 4 for Independence Day. This includes Björk Café and Bistro, the Shop at Scandinavia House, and Offices at Scandinavia House. We will reopen with normal hours for all spaces, including the Children’s Center and Galleries, on Friday, July 5.
See you after the holiday!

THE DANISH SECRET TO HAPPY KIDS | VIRTUAL BOOK TALK WITH HELEN RUSSELL
2024-07-09 12:00 - 13:30 | NY
Join us July 9 with a virtual discussion with Helen Russell to celebrate the launch of The Danish Secret to Happy Kids! She’ll join us for a talk and Q&A on her deeply-researched guide to the Danish way of parenting, out today from Source Books.
What do Vikings know about raising children? Turns out, quite a bit. After a decade of living and raising her family in Denmark, Russell noticed important differences in Danish kids. They eat differently, learn differently, and even sleep differently. They’re out in nature for hours a day, though it’s dark October through March. And then they grow up to be some of the happiest adults on the planet. So her question was: how?
The Danish Secret to Happy Kids shares what author Helen Russell has learned first-hand and through talking to Nordic psychologists, sociologists and teachers about rearing well-balanced children. In doing so, she dives into the parenting culture of Denmark and other Nordic nations, from parental leave to school structure to screen time. Combining intellectual curiosity and research with observation, this is a positive, thought-provoking parenting book for readers curious about cultural differences.
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TOUCH
2024-07-09 19:00 - 21:00, 2024-07-10 19:00 - 21:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
On July 9 & 10, see Baltasar Kormákur’s Touch, a thrilling love story spanning decades and continents, in theaters on July 12!
Based on the bestselling novel of Ólafur J. Ólafsson, Touch follows a widower’s emotional journey to find his first love before his time runs out. When Icelandic restaurateur Kristófer receives startling news, he sets out to track down a woman he knew long ago — Miko, who abruptly disappeared from London 50 years ago. The journey that unfolds reveals what may have been and may be yet to come.
Special thanks to Focus Features.
Photo by Lilja Jonsdottir
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FISHING FOR THE LITTLE PIKE BY JUHANI KARILA | NORDIC BOOK CLUB ONLINE
2024-07-16 18:00 - 19:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Read and discuss literature with our Nordic Book Club Online! On July 16, translator Lola Rogers will be present as a special guest for a discussion of Finnish author Juhani Karila’s English-language debut Fishing for the Little Pike, a genre-defying tale of a young woman’s pilgrimage to her home in Lapland. *The program will begin with a short discussion with Lola Rogers on the book and her translation, followed by a Q&A with Nordic Book Club attendees.*
When Elina makes her annual summer trip to her remote family farm in Lapland, she has an important mission: catch the pike in their local pond in three days, or she and the love of her life will die. Despite her usual success, this year’s trip grows difficult when deadly supernatural creatures intervene, and a murder detective arrives. Can Elina catch the pike and end the curse that began when a youthful love affair turned sour? Will Sergeant Janatuinen make it back to civilization in one piece? And why is Lapland in summer so weird?
Fishing for the Little Pike is an audacious, satisfying blend of fantasy, folk tale, and nature writing.
“Karila keeps things fanciful and funny even as the story’s folklore elements descend into the dark and disturbing, thanks to his exuberant embrace of the godforsaken landscape and its inhabitants. This twisted love letter to the rural region leaves a lasting impression.”— Publishers Weekly
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FREYDÍS AND GUDRID
2024-07-16 19:00 - 21:30 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
On July 16, join us for a screening and film talk on Freydís and Gudrid, an epic musical based on the Icelandic Vinland sagas, with director/writer/composer and ASF Fellow Jeffrey Leiser!
Written in the 13th century, the Saga of the Greenlanders and Eirik the Red’s Saga contain the first-ever descriptions of North America through seafaring adventures amid storms, disease and navigational mishaps. Written, directed, and composed by Leiser, this operatic adaptation follows a group of merchants on a journey to reclaim ancestral lands, as two women — Freydís (Kirsten Chambers) and Gudrid (Micaëla Oeste) — face a brutal reckoning. Created with the support of ASF, Freydís and Gudrid will also be available as an opera album on iTunes and Spotify on July 7.
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SWEDISH INTERMEDIATE 1
2024-07-31 19:50 - 21:30, 2024-08-07 19:50 - 21:30, 2024-08-14 19:50 - 21:30, 2024-08-21 19:50 - 21:30, 2024-08-28 19:50 - 21:30, 2024-09-04 19:50 - 21:30, 2024-09-11 19:50 - 21:30, 2024-09-18 19:50 - 21:30 and 1 more date | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Learn the Nordic languages in classes offered this summer at Scandinavia House! In this course, the focus will be primarily on conversation. Students will discuss various subjects brought up in each chapter via informative texts, with topics spanning subjects such as Swedish cultural and social life, wild animals, historical figures, politics and more. The grammar is overall a comprehensive repetition of the beginner levels, while also introducing a few new things like reflexive pronouns, the present participle and the conditional. Several books will be assigned over the course of the semester. Intermediate 1 runs over three semesters and courses can be taken in any order.
This class will take place on Wednesday evenings. Because of elevator maintenance work at Scandinavia House all July and August classes will be held online.
Pre-requisite: completion of beginner levels or equivalent. Instructions for remote learning will be emailed upon registration. For questions about language levels, please contact Malin Tybahl. Tuition is $499 ($449.10 ASF Members); 15 hours total class time over 9 weeks.
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DESIGNING WITH NATURE | PANEL WITH BLUE LAGOON ICELAND
2024-09-05 16:00 - 18:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Join us for A Taste of Iceland New York this September, organized by Inspired by Iceland! On September 5 at Scandinavia House, Blue Lagoon Iceland will present a discussion about emergency design and its role during times of seismic activity, held in collaboration with Iceland Design and Architecture and DesignMarch.
Tumultuous events have greatly influenced Icelandic companies over the past decades. The economic collapse, the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull Volcano eruption, the COVID pandemic, and now seismic activity on the Reykjanes Peninsula have forced Icelanders to repeatedly adapt and adjust. Thanks to the Icelandic can-do attitude, our society has met these challenges with optimism and creative thinking at the forefront.
At Blue Lagoon, design and design thinking have been a cornerstone from the beginning. The company has applied design thinking to learn from each tumultuous event and utilized that knowledge when necessary. At the same time, Blue Lagoon has worked on defining new ways to coexist with nature.
This event aims to put the dialogue about emergency design on the agenda and share knowledge about the role design can play in uncertain times.
Host: Halla Helgadóttir, managing director of Iceland Design and Architecture
Speakers:
Sigurður Þorsteinsson, Head of Brand, Marketing, Design and Construction at Blue Lagoon.
Arnhildur Pálmadóttir, Owner of s.ap Architects and Lendager in Iceland.
Robert Kirkbride, Ph.D, Parsons School of Design on Creating Design Solutions for Natural Disasters.
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ICELAND'S CRIME FICTION ROYALTY | RAGNAR JÓNASSON & YRSA SIGURÐARDÓTTIR
2024-09-07 13:00 - 14:30 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Join us for A Taste of Iceland in New York this September, organized by Inspired by Iceland! On September 7 at Scandinavia House, bestselling authors Ragnar Jónasson and Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, known as the Queen and King of Icelandic crime fiction, will be joined for a conversation moderated by Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi, a former NYC homicide prosecutor and creator of the “Anatomy of Murder” podcast.
In this program, the authors will discuss their novels, as well as the literature festival they run as a side hustle. Ragnar Jónasson’s Reykjavík, a crime novel he co-authored with former Icelandic Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir, involves the disappearance of a young woman from picturesque Viðey island and the ensuing investigation spanning decades. The story is set in part during the 200th anniversary of the city of Reykjavík in 1986, allowing the reader a glimpse into a world gone by. Jónasson will also discuss this as well as his latest book, Death at the Sanatorium, which will be released in the U.S. on September 10.
Yrsa Sigurðardóttir will discuss The Legacy, the first book in the Huldar and Freyja series with child psychologist Freyja and policeman Huldar, who must set aside their differences to solve a highly oddly executed murder of a young mother, witnessed only by her silent young daughter. The Legacy was awarded the Blooddrop award for best crime novel in Iceland the year it came out and also includes one of the most innovative murder methods in recent crime novel publications.
Copies of Reykjavík, The Legacy and Death at the Sanatorium will all be available for purchase and signing after the event.
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HEROSTORIES | NORDIC BOOK CLUB ONLINE
2024-09-10 18:00 - 19:00 | NY
Read and discuss literature with our Nordic Book Club Online! On September 10 in coordination with this month’s Taste of Iceland festival, we’ll be discussing Herostories, a work from Icelandic poet-historian Kristín Svava Tómasdóttir composed from the memoirs and biographies of 100 Icelandic midwives, out now in translation by K.B. Thors from Deep Vellum.
Herostories reveals tales untold by most history books: the harrowing journeys and vital triumphs of 19th- and 20th-century midwifery in the vast landscape of Iceland. Forgoing traditional sagas of androcentric conquest, these poems center the adventures of ljósmæður, “mothers of light.” Tómasdóttir leverages epic elements—dashing mountain treks, rivers forded on horseback, unyielding compassion—to challenge how and by whom stories become legend. Beyond archival recognition, the text’s formally ambitious poetics render gender-based battles for literacy and education alongside narratives of selfless womanly caretaking, pressurizing the fundamental tensions between feminine self-actualization and the romanticized service of these trailblazing figures.
The follow-up to Tómasdóttir and Thors’ award-winning, PEN-nominated Stormwarning, Herostories documents the professional achievements of Iceland’s first women to work outside the home, precursors to today’s midwives who remain central to contemporary health care on the island.
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"TOUCHING MAGIC" WITH FINLANDIA FOUNDATION | SIBELIUS ACADEMY & THE JUILLIARD SCHOOL
2024-09-10 19:00 - 21:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Join us for an evening of “Touching Magic” with Finlandia Foundation on September 10! An artistically unique transatlantic music project featuring students from Sibelius Academy at the University of the Arts Helsinki and the Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts at The Juilliard School, “Touching Magic” has brought together young vocalists and pianists from both institutions to perform classical Nordic and contemporary American pieces in Helsinki and NYC.
Tonight’s program will comprise a presentation of the project by Brian Zeger (Artistic Director of the Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts, The Juilliard School) and Markus Lehtinen (Professor of Opera and Vocal Music, Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki), as well as a performance of American and Finnish songs with students from both schools: Francesco Barfoed, Jack Hicks, Kiia Nordlund, Gabriel Kivivuori Sereno, Adelia Spångberg and Abla Benzemroun. It will conclude with a student panel discussion.
This event has been organized by Scandinavia House with Finlandia Foundation National. Join us to celebrate the connecting power of music!
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TEXTILE TAKEOVER: ARTIST TALKS, PANEL & RECEPTION
2024-09-14 14:00 - 16:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Join us on Saturday, September 14 for a program and opening reception for TEXTILE TAKEOVER. Featuring an artist & curator-led walkthrough of the exhibition in the Scandinavia House Galleries, the tour will be followed by “Nordic Movements in Contemporary Textiles” a presentation by Evelina Hedin, international coordinator at the Swedish Crafts Centre in Stockholm. Following a short break, a panel discussion featuring artists Isabel Berglund (DK), Mariana Silva Varela (SE), Ingunn Fjola Ingthorsdottir (IS), Evelina Hedin (SE) and Kathy Halfin (US), moderated by Emily Stoddart, will discuss themes and concerns related to contemporary Nordic textiles and craft today. An opening reception will round out the afternoon. Presented in partnership with New York Textile Month, and the Swedish Craft Centre.
TEXTILE TAKEOVER is presented in partnership with New York Textile Month.
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FAMILY DINNER | BJÖRK CAFE & BISTRO
2024-09-14 17:00 - 19:00 | Björk Cafe & Bistro at Scandinavia House, 58 Park Ave, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Join us for a family dinner at Björk Cafe & Bistro! Tonight’s dining from 5-7 PM will feature a supervised craft table for kids, with a special kids menu of $30 per child.

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TEXTILE TAKEOVER | WORKSHOP WITH ISABEL BERGLUND
2024-09-15 13:00 - 16:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Presented in TEXTILE TAKEOVER, a weekend-long showcase of innovation in Nordic textile art at Scandinavia House, join us for an adult art workshop with Danish artist Isabel Berglund! In this three-hour workshop, participants will join Berglund in creating a performance-piece, “People’s Paper Puff Jumper,” a work knitted by hand in paper yarn. The participants in the workshop will hand knit puff sleeves in light gray paper yarn with a colored edge that emphasizes the puff sleeve. The puff sleeve will be added to a larger hand-knitted piece, which will eventually become a large textile installation in the form of a communal paper sweater. The viewer will be able to enter the work and stick their arms through the pouffe arms and thereby become part of the work. The craft of “knitting” is set aside for a process where the work is created by the handprints of many different people.
All materials will be provided. TEXTILE TAKEOVER is presented in partnership with New York Textile Month.
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SUMMERLIGHT AND THEN COMES THE NIGHT
2024-09-18 19:00 - 21:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
“Adalsteins’ eye for detail and the picture’s persuasive sense of place and of community carries us along for the leisurely, meandering ride” (ScreenDaily).
On September 18, join us for a screening of Summerlight and Then Comes the Night, based on the popular novel by Icelandic author Jón Kalman Stefánsson. *The screening will be followed by a panel with Stefánsson, film director Elfar Adalsteins, and actress Anna Maria Pitt, moderated by author Sigridur Hagalin Bjornsdottir*
This little Icelandic village is brimming with stories, and if you listen closely, it might tell you a few tales. Perhaps the one about the prominent businessman who dreams in Latin and sacrifices a promising career for astronomy and old books. Or perhaps you’ll hear the one about the policeman’s son, a sensitive boy who paints and carves birds and dreams of being an artist. Or maybe the one about the wild, open-air sex with explosive consequences. Or the one about the big rock that can break the finely woven thread running between life and death… Starring Heida Reed, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Svandis Dora Einarsdottir, and others, Summerlight and Then Comes the Night (Sumarljós og svo kemur nóttin, dir. Elfar Adalsteins, Iceland/Belgium/Sweden, 2022) takes us on an intimate journey through a small town with great magic.
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HACKING HATE | SCREENING & FILM TALK WITH SIMON KLOSE
2024-09-20 18:30 - 20:30 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Join us on Friday, September 20 for a special screening and film talk on Hacking Hate, Simon Klose’s kinetic and socially-pressing documentary following award-winning Swedish journalist My Vingren as she goes undercover online to expose a network of neo-Nazis and far-right organizations fostering hate speech and extremism on a global scale.
Social media has become a major vehicle for spreading hate speech and a safe harbor for authoritarian agendas. With the U.S. elections on the doorstep, this screening of Hacking Hate is essential to understand the reasons for the rise of hateful content and disinformation as well as ways to hold social media companies accountable for their role in proliferating hate online. This event is a special impact screening co-hosted by Think-Film Impact Production and includes a post-screening Q&A with director Simon Klose.
Winner of Best Documentary Feature at Tribeca Film Festival. “Hacking Hate provides a bracing insider’s look at the grossness that proliferates throughout [social media’s] right-wing regions” (Nick Schager, The Daily Beast).
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SOLD OUT: NORDIC NIGHT WITH EINAR SELVIK OF WARDRUNA
2024-09-29 14:00 - 17:30 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Join us on September 29 for an exclusive U.S. music event with composer Einar Selvik of Wardruna! Having written songs and scores for HBO’s hit series Vikings and the game Assasins Creed Valhalla, the music of the Norwegian group has received worldwide recognition. Wardruna’s last record, Kvitrafn, charted in 13 countries, including #1 in Canada and Austria, and #2 in Germany. During this Nordic Night event held in advance of a major upcoming performance at Red Rocks in Colorado, Selvik will guide the attendees into Wardruna’s universe in word and sound, exploring nature and animism, myths, Norse spiritual concepts and more. Fans will also get a very exclusive preview and premiere of a recently recorded show.
The full program will be announced shortly; stay tuned for more details.

THE ARCTIC CONVOY
2024-10-02 19:00 - 21:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
On Wednesday, October 2, join us for a screening of the electrifying WWII thriller The Arctic Convoy (Norway, 2024)!
In 1942, the leader of a convoy carrying vital military supplies to a Norwegian outpost decides to proceed through treacherous, enemy infested waters despite the recall of their military escort. Fighting for their lives against German air and naval forces, the 35 civilian merchant ships brave brutal Arctic seas to bring much needed support to soldiers on the front lines. Directed by Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken (Munch, Going West), the film honors the forgotten heroes of World War II.
“Strong performances and a character-driven focus adds some unexpected layers to this riveting, edge-of-your-seat nautical drama” (Keith & The Movies).
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NO SHIP SETS OUT TO BE A SHIPWRECK | AUTHOR PANEL
2024-10-08 19:00 - 21:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
On October 8, join us for a discussion with Joan Wickersham and Adam Davies to celebrate the release of Wickersham’s No Ship Sets Out To Be a Shipwreck, a poetic and philosophical meditation inspired by the Swedish warship Vasa, out now from Eastover Press!
Launched on August 10, 1628, the Swedish warship Vasa sank only minutes into its maiden voyage, and lay forgotten underwater until it was found and raised more than 300 years later. In 2021, ASF Fellows Joan Wickersham and Adam Davies created Scandinavia House’s first-ever digital art and literary exhibition, Conversations With a Shipwreck, which responded to the legendary ship through presentations of Wickersham’s poems and Davies’ photography, exploring themes of memory and oblivion, permanence and impermanence, mortality and time.
No Ship Sets Out To Be A Shipwreck is a collection of essays and poems that are contemplative, strange, passionate, funny, and haunting that is and isn’t about a ship—a personal yet universal reckoning with mortality, and the question of what vanishes and what endures. In today’s program, Davies will present his photography of the Vasa followed by readings from Wickersham from the new book. Last, they will discuss their work with the Vasa in a conversation moderated by writer, editor, and translator Kira Josefsson.
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BEETHOVEN: LOVE AND DEFIANCE
2024-10-10 19:30 - 21:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Internationally acclaimed pianist Jeffrey Siegel returns this fall for his ever-popular Keyboard Conversations® series at Scandinavia House. Each evening comprises an informal commentary on the music and its composers, a full performance of each work, and a short Q & A session. The engaging format both makes friends of classical music and enriches the listening experience for avid music lovers.
Who was Elise of “Für Elise”? Tonight’s program will consist of Beethoven’s most famous composition as well as the “à Thérèse” and “Appassionata” Sonatas!

Thanks to a generous loan by Victor Borge’s grandson Finn, concerts will be performed on Victor Borge’s personal Steinway piano.
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NO OTHER LAND
2024-10-14 19:00 - 21:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
On October 14, see No Other Land, a Norwegian-produced, vérité-style documentary by a Palestinian-Israeli collective of four directors. *A film talk and Q&A follows the screening with co-directors Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor.*
Basel Adra, a Palestinian activist from Masafer Yatta, has been fighting his community’s mass expulsion by Israeli occupation since childhood. Basel documents the gradual erasure of Masafer Yatta as soldiers destroy the homes of families — the largest single act of forced transfer carried out in the occupied West Bank. After he crosses paths with Yuval Abraham, a young Israeli journalist, the two spend half a decade fighting the expulsion. Their complex bond is haunted by the extreme inequality between them: Basel lives under a brutal military occupation, and Yuval is unrestricted and free. Created during the darkest, most terrifying times in the region, No Other Land was filmed by Basel and Yuval alongside two fellow activists — Isareli Rachel Szor and Palestinian Hamdan Ballal. The film is an act of creative resistance to Apartheid and a search for a path towards equality and justice. (Norway & Palestine, 2024).
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