No. 23

The old Reykjavík docks hum beneath a pale sky.

Birch tar and black pepper rise from weathered wood, mingling with salt from the sea and the warmth of tobacco caught in wool and skin. It smells of heavy boots on wet planks, oil-stained palms, and the faint sweetness of grass crushed underfoot. A quiet moment between toil and tide—where memory clings to smoke and metal, and wind carries the stories of those who worked the harbor before. Earthy, human, and elemental, it lingers like a half-remembered song beneath the Icelandic mist.

Fischersund is a family-run perfumery and art collective anchored in downtown Reykjavík, where musician, visual artist, and self-taught perfumer Jónsi — lead vocalist of Sigur Rós — joined siblings Lilja, Ingibjörg, and Sigurrós, along with partners Sindri and Kjartan, to build something that resists easy category. Founded in 2017, it operates out of a space that is simultaneously a shop, a gallery, a venue, and an installation — a place designed, in the brand's own words, to let the senses synthesize and harmonize.

At the center of the practice is handcrafted fragrance: perfumes that are hand-blended and hand-poured in Iceland, drawn from oils and herbs sourced from the Icelandic wild, and packaged sustainably. Lead artisan Sigurrós Birgisdóttir oversees production in the Súðarvogur workshop, where each scent is developed in close conversation with the bespoke music and visual work the collective produces. The result is a body of work in which scent, sound, and image arrive together — not as adjacencies, but as a single sensory argument.