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Children's Festival at Reykjavík City Museum 2023

Reykjavík City Museum offers many fun events for children and their families during the festival from 18-23 April. Admission to all events is free of charge.

ÁRBÆR OPEN AIR MUSEUM  - THURSDAY, 20 APRIL

 Programme:
13:00-13:20 The school band of Árbær and Breiðholt plays and marches around the museum
13:00-16:00 Puzzles and outdoor activities, cake sale and candy floss with scouts from Árbær
13:00-15:00 Summer greeting workshop in Lækjargata.
14:00-16:00 Art workshop in the Granary
14:00-14:20 Fairy tales with the folklorist Dagrún Jónsdóttir at Álfhóllinn
14:00-16:00 Children are invited to ride on friendly and calm horses from Faxaból
14:30-15:00 Aquarius race for children and parents. Caution it could splash water! 15:30-16:00 Aquarius race. Relay race for children and parents. Caution the water can splash.
13:00-16:00 The Stolen Museum Artifact – Puzzle game
13:00-16:00 "lummur" (traditional small pancakes) and wool work in the old farm Árbær.

THE SETTLEMENT EXHIBITION - AÐALSTRÆTI 16 - SATURDAY 22 APRIL

13:00-15:00                    Work Shop in a settlement style

In the Art Studio at the Settlement Exhibition, participants work with artefacts that the settlers brought to Iceland. They look at pictures belonging to the period and speculate on Celtic and Romanesque patterns. Then mould an object from self-hardening clay.

The workshop's teacher is the art teacher Rannveig Jónsdóttir. She has taught art for years and researched the relationship between art, patterns and mathematics in her MA project. She is also an artist and draws and paints. She has held solo exhibitions, participated in group exhibitions and illustrated study materials.

Participation is open to everyone and is free. The program is held on the occasion of the Children's Culture Festival. Please note that admission to the museum is free for adults accompanied by children.

THE SETTLEMENT EXHIBITION - AÐALSTRÆTI 16 - SUNDAY 23 APRIL 

14:30-15:30                   Guided tour in Polish

Reykjavík City Museum offers a family-guided tour in Polish on Sunday, April 23, from 14:30-15:30, in Aðalstræti. Two exhibitions trace the history of Reykjavík: The settlement show and the Reykjavík...the Story Continues. Marta Wieczorek, assistant principal of the Polish School in Reykjavík, is in charge of the guidance.

The Settlement Exhibition deals with the settlement of Reykjavík. The exhibition focuses on the remains of a hall from the Settlement Age excavated in 2001. Reykjavík...the Story Continues is a direct continuation of The Settlement Exhibition, representing Reykjavík's history from the settlement to the present day. Visitors get an insight into the complex history and culture of Reykjavík through the development of house construction and planning with a stop at the oldest house in the city centre, Aðalstræti 10.

The guided tour is free, and all Polish speakers are warmly welcome. The event is a collaborative project with Móðurmál - The Association on Bilingualism.

Accessibility: Access for people with disability is good. Note that the exhibition is dimly lit, and the floor is uneven in several places. Guide dogs are welcome at the museum.

Bus services stop at City Hall (2 mins) and Lækjargata (5 mins). 

REYKJAVÍK MARITIME MUSEUM - SUNDAY, 23 APRIL

13:00-13:30                   Folk Tales about Sea creatures and monsters

Storytelling for families at the Reykjavik Maritime Museum on Sunday, 23 April, at 13:00.

Ever since the settlement, people in this country have told each other stories of sea creatures and monsters that live in the sea or off the coast of Iceland. The stories were told both for fun and educational purposes.

We have many tales about the ocean and its creatures, but only a few people have heard of them in our modern world, and we want to amend that.

Björk Bjarnadóttir, an environmental folklorist and storyteller, will tell the stories through centuries-old technology and art, which is storytelling itself. The stories will be told but not read aloud. There is a big difference; the storytelling always reaches the audience much better than the reading.

Language: Icelandic

13:30 – 15:00             ART WORKSHOP:  WE ARE EARTH - WE ARE WATER

Welcome to our art workshop: We are Earth – We are Water, for children and their families. Free admission due to the Children's Culture Festival in Reykjavík.

In this workshop, there will be an open flow for people to come and touch various colours. The hand guides us through the different manifestations of our inner worlds as ever-changing chemical compounds, either liquid or solid forms. We are nature in all its forms. Our bodies are made of the same material. We touch on this complexity by bringing out our inner worlds through different forms.

This process of transformation refers to nature as our teacher. In the artistic process, we remember life's infinite diversity and unpredictability. Where really anything could appear. We can't control everything; the same can be said about the material. No matter if it's our bodies, nature, or whatever artistic medium we choose. Many things appear to us in the unexpected.

We encourage participants to view the exhibition We are Earth – We are Water and get inspired before attending the art workshop. At the exhibition, we get an unusual insight into the beautiful forms of nature. A poetic view of the tiny in the huge, which technological innovations give us. At the same time, the work is a dreamlike visual play with ever-changing forms constantly created around us but not by us; we usually don't notice. We are invited on a journey almost into the materials themselves, their amalgamation and the transformation process.

The visual artist Andrea Ágústa Aðalsteinsdóttir leads the workshop.