Jack Latham | Sugar Paper Theories
In 1974, two men went missing in separate incidents in Southwest Iceland. The facts of their disappearances are scarce, and often mundane. An 18 year old set off from a nightclub, drunk, on a ten kilometre walk home in the depths of Icelandic winter. Some months later, a family man failed to return from a meeting with a mysterious stranger. In another time or place, they might have been logged as missing persons and forgotten by all but family and friends. Instead, the Gudmundur and Geirfinnur case became a notorious unresolved double murder investigation that continues to rock Icelandic society to this day.
Latham photographed the places and people that feature in the many varied accounts of what happened to Gudmundur and Geirfinnur after they vanished, resulting in his Sugar Paper Theories project. Spending time with the surviving suspects, as well as whistleblowers, conspiracy theorists, expert witnesses and bystanders to the case, Latham’s photographs and material from the original police investigation files stand in for memories real and constructed.
In the 1970s theories about the disappearances fixated on Iceland’s anxieties over smuggling, drugs and alcohol, and the corrupting influence of the outside world. The country’s highest levels of political power were drawn into the plot. Ultimately, a group of young people on the fringes of society became its key protagonists. All made confessions that led to convictions and prison sentences. Yet none could remember what happened on the nights in question.
A public inquiry and subsequent appeal uncovered another story, of how hundreds of days and nights in the hands of a brutal and inexperienced criminal justice system eroded the link between suspects’ memories and lived experience. In September 2018 all but one of those prosecuted were acquitted by Iceland’s Supreme Court. The fight to clear the remaining suspect of perjury charges in this heinous miscarriage of justice continues while the real perpetrator has never been caught.
