ABSTRACT
‘Slowness’ calls for creativity: sensitive, imaginative contemplation of phenomena concerned with people's everyday lives. Slow is the watchword of a range of movements in the arts, architecture, spatial consciousness and studies of time, reflecting individual and collective awareness of quality of life. Microhistorians have, in fact, untiringly pointed out that it is necessary to approach the logical structure of a study of a small unit differently from macrohistorical analysis, i.e. material classified as ‘empirical history.’ The plan is to juxtapose both microhistory and the slow ideology with the help of my grandfather Helgi Magnússon, a person who was born in the 19th century in the peasant society. He left behind illustrations or an ‘archive’ that I am planning to study to show how important it is to slow down our research quest for meaningful understanding of the everyday experience.
