“This is bigger than getting from A to B,” says Edward Fuglø. “This is a route to another world.” Fuglø is a Faroe Islands artist who created the paintings to decorate the curved interior of a new tunnel winding under the North Atlantic Ocean. Glowing, stylized human figures, many wearing Viking helmets and carrying spears, loom with 3D intensity from the steel-gray walls around me. The figures are accompanied by longships, mythical enchanted horses, cattle, birds and images of ancient stone ruins.
Using the latest Japanese projector technology, the ten images – each several meters high and made from Fuglø’s originals – are as bright as neon and represent fantastic creatures and characters from Faroese legend. “In the tunnel we are dry,” Fuglø muses, “but we feel the weight of the ocean above us. And we cross between very different islands; places with their own identity, even in a place as small as the Faroe Islands.”
The dripping water, I am told, is not a sign that the tunnel is leaking
I was guided through the tunnel for the first time a year and a half ago, when construction was only half finished. The sound of water trickling from the bedrock above provided an eerie soundtrack to the bleak gloom of the rock face, raw and jagged; a place of monstrous shadows created by the gradual blowing up of small parts of the basalt. My guide was Teitur Samuelsen, the CEO of the tunnel company, who has overseen this massive infrastructure project. He pointed his torch upward and told me to extend a cupped hand and catch some of the water that dripped on our heads. “Taste it!” he laughed. ‘It’s fresh, it’s not seawater. We are more than 150 meters below the seabed – this comes from the bedrock. It is not a sign that the tunnel roof is leaking.”
The newly opened connection is 10.5 kilometers long and connects Streymoy, the main island of the Faroes and home to the capital Tórshavn with its 20,000 inhabitants, and Sandoy, a small island where only 1,200 people live. Driving through the completed tunnel takes approximately 10 minutes. And for those who had only reached Sandoy by the small ferry that buzzed back and forth between the islands in (almost) any weather, it is a strange new sensation.
As a frequent visitor to the Faroe Islands, which is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, I miss the throbbing throb of the ship’s engines, the thunderous thump of the stern doors closing and the heady smell of marine diesel and salt spray. The journey was short, just over half an hour, but spectacular – from the views of the smaller islands of Hestur and Koltur to the approaching cliffs of Sandoy. In winter these often disappeared under a veil of foam and splashing water. Even in summer they could be shrouded in a descending sea mist. However, the residents of Sandoy see the tunnel as a lifeline, meaning they are no longer dependent on the ferry.
The romance of the crossing may have disappeared, but driving through the new tunnel is quite an experience. In addition to Fuglø’s vibrant artwork, the tunnel has its own soundscape, an original composition by Sunleif Rasmussen. As I tune the car radio to 100 FM, I am immersed in a spectral meditation based on sounds he experienced during his own early visit to the construction site. The dreamy electro-acoustic rhythms somehow amplify the roar of the car tires, reinforcing the idea that I am going to another dimension.
The new tunnel departs from the small port of Gamlarætt, not far from Tórshavn. It is the second phase in an ambitious €360 million project, which saw a similar link linking Streymoy to its eastern neighbor Eysturoy in December 2020. As the tunnel approaches Eysturoy, the tunnel splits to the left and right, allowing motorists to travel to two different sides of the island. This three-way connection led to the world’s first underwater roundabout, which Samuelsen decided to make a visual focal point.
Inspired by the giant arc lights used to illuminate the excavations, he commissioned the accomplished Faroese sculptor Tróndur Patursson to devise a permanent installation. The result is colorful lighting and a huge circle of life-size steel figures that encircle the roundabout as if holding hands. The design is based on the Faroe Islands’ unique national ‘ring dance’, in which hundreds of people perform rhythmic movements from left to right, with new dancers free to join the chain at any time.
“We never expected the Eysturoy tunnel to cause such a stir,” says Samuelsen. “Many tourists consider a trip through the tunnel as one of their must-see experiences in the Faroe Islands. They call it ‘the jellyfish roundabout’, because of its shape and the creepy underwater effect of the colored ceiling lights. We felt we should create something equally artistic for the newest tunnel.”
When I first come to Sandoy by car, I suddenly find myself in a soft green valley exactly halfway between the main villages of Skópun and Sandoy. The tunnel itself blends smoothly into the hillside, adding to the feeling of it being a secret portal, and for those of us used to the more gradual arrival by sea, there is a sense of surprise that we found ourselves here so can be achieved quickly and effortlessly.
The residents of Sandoy seem to be universally satisfied with the tunnel. Sproti Úr Dímun is 18 and plays for the professional football team in Sandur. “I study in Tórshavn,” he says. “So traveling back and forth on the ferry for training five or six nights a week can take up to five hours a day. It’s so much easier now – although the ferry was also a very enjoyable experience, chatting with friends and maybe playing cards. I will miss that.”
Fuglø is struck by the pace of change in the Faroe Islands over the past decade. “These tunnels have changed our lives,” he says. “My grandmother lived on another island and sometimes it took three days to get to Tórshavn by rowing boat, stopping at farms along the way and waiting for the right tide and weather. She would never believe the speed at which we do things now. Our relationship with this rugged landscape is tamed.”
Fuglø is well aware of the complex history of these islands and the folk traditions that still play a role in everyday life, whether it is chain dancing or everyone knowing which island their grandparents came from. In his tunnel paintings, which he says are partly inspired by the idea of ancient people making marks on the walls of their caves, he has included numerous colored birds. These are a reference to Diðrikur, who was born on Sandoy in 1802. Diðrikur, an uneducated farmhand, made colorful paintings of Faroese birds on pieces of wrapping paper.
His simple, emblematic silhouettes of ducks, geese and subtly shaded moon doves now hang in the National Gallery, the oldest known examples of figurative art from the Faroe Islands. About 150 meters below the Atlantic Ocean, Fuglø’s modern counterparts now perch like the birds of Diðrikur in these wondrous tunnels that look into both the past and the future.