Iceland

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The women of the Icelandic music industry are proud to launch an Iceland chapter of the renowned shesaid.so organisation during the 2022 Iceland Airwaves festival and conference. shesaid.so is an international community of women and gender nonconforming people whose mission is to connect and empower underrepresented communities towards a more equitable music industry for all.

This chapter is being started by Anna Jóna Dungal, Hrefna Helgadóttir, Kelechi Amadi and Kim Wagenaar; and what they all have in common is having spent significant time abroad where they individually came to appreciate the value of strong communities to share experiences, collaborate and accelerate career growth. In an industry so built on relationships like the music industry, this type of access to networks and communities is incredibly precious and is how projects get moved forward. It’s well documented that women and gender nonconforming people are often excluded from existing networks which is a big factor in holding back their careers. While Iceland has some of the most revered women artists in the world, our industry here is far from equal. The percentage of women who hold decision making positions, work in studios, and produce music is still appallingly low and according to STEF, only 11% of songwriters collecting copyright royalties are women just to name a few.

They agreed to not having this sense of international industry community here in Iceland, so they decided to formalise one themselves for women and gender nonconforming people under the banner of the global shesaid.so who’ve paved the way on how to model this type of organisation. The aim of the Iceland chapter is not just strengthening itself by connecting internally, but also building on this global brand to strengthen and build on connections to the international music industry.

The goal is for the organisation to start in 2023 with four big events over the year and a series of smaller networking meet-ups. The chapter will be run by 5-8 industry professionals and artists who together make up the board, and then any woman or gender nonconforming people in Iceland can join as a member. Members will pay a small annual fee to access the events, the global community, job opportunities in the industry and much more and is open for all women and gender nonconforming people who work in music in Iceland. 

The organisation looks to educate, inspire, connect, and entertain its members offering up opportunities to network, showcase talent both at home and away – which will serve the wider music community here in Iceland by making the industry more equal and more visible.