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íslenska

Birgitta Jónsdóttir

Bio

Birgitta Jónsdóttir was born in Reykjavík on April 17th 1967. She grew up in Reykjavík and the town of Þorlákshöfn, but also attended boarding schools away from home and finished her grade school education in Dýrafjörður. Birgitta has attended numerous courses that have to do with the internet and creative thought. She has lived all around the world, in Scandinavia, Australia, the United States, New Zealand, England and Holland among other countries.

Birgitta has written articles and interviews for newspapers and magazines since 1988, such as Morgunblaðið, the computer magazine Tölvuheimur, the feminist magazine Vera and The Reykjavík Grapevine. She has organized and directed a number of art- and culture festivals, such as the multimedia festival Drápa, which was part of the Icelandic Art Festival in 1996. This was the first time a live broadcast was done on the Internet in Iceland. The Icelandic National Radio did a TV program about this festival, which was aired in the same year. Birgitta was one of the people who organized the festival List gegn stríði (Art Against War) in 2003. She was the artistic director and creater of the Apple Iceland art gallery from 1996 - 1998, the first virtual art gallery in Iceland. She has done various other jobs through the years, worked in a music store, in a fish factory, done layout work and now works as a graphic designer and journalist as well as being a writer and publisher. She sat on the Icelandic parliament Althingi from 2009 - 2017. 

Birgitta started writing poetry at an early age. Her first published book was the poetry collection Frostdinglar (Icicles), published by AB publishers in 1989. Poems by her had previously appeared in magazines and collections. She was one of the first people in Iceland to use the Internet for her artwork. A large number of Birgitta's work has been published on the Internet in various languages. Her poetry and other art have also appeared in magazines, collections and other mediums all over the world. Birgitta is one of the founders of e-poets. She defines herself as a multi-artist, working in the field of literature, visual art and video-art, although literature is her most prominent field. Birgitta has sent forward a number of small books with her poetry and pictures. Her first novel, Dagbók kameljónsins (The Chameleon's Diary), was published in 2005. As the title indicates, the novel is in the form of a diary, and it is based on Birgitta's memories although put forward as a novel. She has also translated fiction and non fiction into Icelandic.

Birgitta has performed at various poetry and art festivals and programs in Iceland and abroad, in the United States, Britain, Canada, Portugal and Makedonia to name a few. She has been active in international poetry collaboration for years.