Iceland - From Laptop to Mop, or Freedom, Icelandic Style

The talk “Iceland - From Laptop to Mop, or Freedom, Icelandic Style” is about seasonal work in Iceland. The speaker shares her own path: her freelance clients were taken over by artificial intelligence, the market was flooded with cheap competition, and returning to a full-time job was out of the question. She swapped her laptop for a hotel mop. She works for six months, and for the next six months she “pays herself a vacation,” which she spends hiking in the mountains.

The program includes:

• the realities of seasonal work,
• life in small towns,
• the Iceland you don’t see on Instagram: everyday absurdities, difficulties, and the less postcard-like reality behind the spectacular views.

Freedom in Iceland doesn’t always smell of forest. The trees were long ago felled by the Vikings’ axes, and the rest were eaten by sheep, so sometimes it smells of the “forest freshness” of floor cleaner.