Whaling Station

Woody Vasulka’s 12-minute film Whaling Station was shot at Hvalfjörður, in Iceland, in 1964.

That year, after graduating from the Film Faculty at the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague, The Czechoslovakian artist Bohuslav “Woody” Vašulka (1937-2019) was given a 35mm camera and black and white film by the school to make documentaries. Later that year, Woody traveled to Iceland with Steina Briem Bjarnadóttir (b. 1940), an Icelandic concert violinist whom he met in Czechoslovakia in 1964 and later married. While in Iceland, Woody worked on two films, with Steina as producer and Miroslav Filip (a Czech photographer) as cameraman. The first film was Herring Season Seyðisfjörður, and the second was Whaling Station.

Woody and is compatriot Miroslav “were naturally interested in the fishing industry, coming from a land-locked country,” recalls Steina, who accompanied the filmmakers on location throughout Iceland. They were intrigued by the process of flensing whale carcasses that they witnessed in Hvalfjörður. “Czechs have a particular aversion to killing,” Steina observed. “Carving the animal was shocking to them.” Significantly, the film is made without signaling an editorial position on whale killing and processing. This was intentional. Coming from a country under Soviet rule, Woody aimed to make films that did not use cinematic methods of propaganda. Rather, he wanted the images to speak for themselves. The original score for the film, composed by Josef Ceremuga (Czech, 1930-2005), underscores the artist’s approach not to sentimentalize the subject. Through the straightforward, unemotional presentation, viewers are left to form their own opinion about the realities of the whaling industry.