Ancient Matter / Present Form

Iceland · 2015 – 2024 · developed through repeated field visits across volcanic, geothermal, glacial, and coastal landscapes

Ancient Matter / Present Form is a photographic study developed through repeated encounters with Iceland between 2015 and 2024. Muller lived in Iceland from 2015 to 2019, returning in 2022 and 2024.

Moving through volcanic, geothermal, glacial and coastal environments, the work considers Iceland as an active material system shaped by forces operating across radically different scales of time.

The photographs were made intuitively, before their relationships to geological cycles became fully apparent. Returning to the archive years later, Muller began to recognise relationships between eruption, cooling rock, geothermal activity, ice, meltwater, erosion, and sediment.

The work follows matter in transition. From rock to water, ice to melt, pressure to surface, attending to landscapes shaped by processes that exceed human timescales.

Re-read in 2026, the work traces how apparently separate landscapes form part of a longer material passage.

Turquoise river below a dark lava field at Hraunfossar, with numerous narrow waterfalls emerging through the rocky bank into the water.

Hraunfossar, Borgarfjörður, West Iceland, 2024. Groundwater emerges through the porous Hallmundarhraun lava field into the Hvítá River

Matter does not remain where it begins

Across Iceland, heat, pressure, water and time continually transform the landscape. Lava cools and fractures. Ice accumulates and moves. Meltwater carries sediment across the land. Coastlines erode and redistribute material.

What appears solid is part of a much longer process of movement and change.

Close view of a dark lava-cave wall at Víðgelmir, showing horizontal bands and fine vertical textures in the cooled volcanic rock.

Víðgelmir lava cave, Hallmundarhraun, West Iceland, 2024. Layered textures on the interior wall of a lava tube formed within the Hallmundarhraun lava field.

AAerial view of glowing red-orange lava branching through a dark crusted lava field during the Holuhraun eruption in Iceland.

Holuhraun eruption, Bárðarbunga volcanic system, Iceland, January 2015. Basaltic lava flowing across the Holuhraun lava field approximately five months into the 2014–2015 fissure eruption.

Aerial view of a dark lava field with pale plumes rising from several areas of the crusted volcanic surface.

Holuhraun eruption, Bárðarbunga volcanic system, Iceland, January 2015. Plumes rise from active and cooling areas of the lava field during the later months of the 2014–2015 fissure eruption.

Deep blue-green crater lake surrounded by steep red-brown volcanic slopes streaked with green vegetation at Kerið in South Iceland.

Kerið, Grímsnes, South Iceland, 2015. Water-filled volcanic crater surrounded by steep red volcanic slopes and vegetation.

Aerial view of a narrow dark fissure running diagonally through pale, lichen-covered volcanic rock in Southwest Iceland.

Þingvellir–Hengill region, Southwest Iceland, 2016. Fissure cutting through volcanic terrain within Iceland’s active rift zone, where the North American and Eurasian plates are diverging.

$Wide view of fractured dark lava and snow-covered depressions near the entrance to Víðgelmir, with a broad volcanic plateau and snow-streaked mountains beyond.$

Víðgelmir lava cave area, Hallmundarhraun, West Iceland, 2024. Fractured lava terrain above and around the Víðgelmir lava-tube system, with snow collecting in collapsed and broken sections of the lava field.

Wide winter view across the Hverir geothermal field, with shallow steaming pools, mineral-stained ground, patches of snow and a winding road on the pale mountainside beyond.

Hverir geothermal area, Námafjall, North Iceland, 2015. Geothermally heated water and steam move through mineral-stained ground within the high-temperature geothermal field at the foot of Námafjall.

Dense golden steam rising through a snow-covered geothermal valley at sunset near Reykjadalur, with dark volcanic slopes behind.

Reykjadalur, near Hveragerði, South Iceland, 2015. Steam rises from geothermally heated ground and water within the Reykjadalur valley, part of the Hengill volcanic area.

Close view through blue geothermal water onto dark volcanic rock coated with pale green and whitish mineral deposits at the Blue Lagoon.

Blue Lagoon, Svartsengi, Reykjanes Peninsula, Iceland, 2015. Detail of geothermal seawater moving across volcanic ground, with silica-rich mineral deposits forming around the submerged rock.

What appears solid is still in motion.

Geological change unfolds across radically different timescales. Lava can become rock within a human lifetime; glaciers accumulate and move across centuries; water carries fragments onward into new terrain.

The photographs trace these not as separate phenomena, but as connected states within a longer material cycle.

Wide view of the debris-streaked Sólheimajökull glacier behind a pale glacial lagoon, surrounded by dark volcanic sediment and rocky moraine.

Sólheimajökull, South Iceland, 2016. View across the glacier margin and proglacial lagoon, where debris-streaked ice meets dark volcanic sediment and meltwater.

Blue translucent ice forms a low arched glacier cave above snow-covered ground and dark rocks, with layered ice textures visible across the ceiling and walls.

“Crystal Ice Cave,” Breiðamerkurjökull, Vatnajökull, Southeast Iceland, 2015. Interior of a seasonal glacier cave formed within the ice of Breiðamerkurjökull, an outlet glacier of Vatnajökull near Jökulsárlón.

Close view of clear and blue ice fragments resting on dark frozen ground at the edge of Jökulsárlón, with blurred icebergs and mountains in the distance.

Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon, Southeast Iceland, 2015. Winter shoreline detail of fractured and refrozen ice at the edge of the lagoon, with larger icebergs

$Close-up of vivid turquoise meltwater running through a narrow fracture in white glacier ice, with dark sediment embedded in the surrounding surface.$

Sólheimajökull, South Iceland, 2016. Close detail of a water-filled fracture within the glacier surface, where meltwater collects in a narrow channel through the ice.

Sólheimajökull, South Iceland, 2016. At the glacier margin, exposed ice meets dark volcanic sediment and meltwater at the edge of the retreating glacier.

Skógafoss waterfall plunging between dark moss-covered cliffs, with snow and ice lining the river and banks below.

Skógafoss, South Iceland, 2015. The Skógá River drops over the former coastal cliffs at Skógafoss before continuing across the lowlands toward the Atlantic.

Fast blue-grey water rushing over low volcanic ledges at Fossálar, with snow-covered rocks and a long dark cliff rising behind the river.

Fossálar, South Iceland, 2015. Water moves through a series of low cascades across dark volcanic rock beside Iceland’s South Coast.

Blue-white icebergs floating in dark open water beneath a heavy grey sky at Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon, with smaller ice fragments in the foreground.

Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon, Southeast Iceland, 2016. Detached icebergs drift through the open lagoon after calving from Breiðamerkurjökull, before continuing toward the Atlantic.

Blue glacier ice and detached ice blocks sit in pale meltwater at Fjallsárlón, framed by steep dark mountains and snow-covered slopes.

Fjallsárlón and Fjallsjökull, Southeast Iceland, 2015. Fjallsjökull descends from Vatnajökull into the glacial lagoon at Fjallsárlón, where detached ice rests in sediment-rich meltwater.

Scattered clear and blue glacier-ice fragments resting on a black volcanic beach, with waves breaking behind them beneath a pale winter sky.

Breiðamerkursandur (Diamond Beach), Southeast Iceland, January 2015. Ice calved from Breiðamerkurjökull moves through Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon toward the Atlantic, where fragments are washed back onto the black-sand shore.

Selected images, image sequences, and wider unpublished archive material are available for editorial, publishing, institutional, and selected commercial licensing. Please get in touch with details of the intended use, territory, duration, and image requirements for availability and a tailored quote.

The archive includes further studies of glacial interiors, meltwater systems, volcanic terrain, ice lagoons, and coastal transition.

Open to selected editorial, publishing, licensing, speaking, and collaborative enquiries.

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