Legacy is a fairy tale by author Andri Snær Magnason that unfolds in real time over the next 100 years.
Magnason has been invited to collaborate with the Danish Coastal Authority, which contributes to research on sea-level rise. He has created the story "Imbalance in the Kingdom", which is mounted on satellite reflectors in the Wadden Sea; they resemble metal flowers, “Space flowers.” The reflectors serve as reference points for the Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite, which collects data to predict how rising sea levels will affect the lives of people, birds, and marine animals in the area.
The “mother flower” stands in Blåvand, the northernmost point of the Wadden Sea, and eight others will be placed in the Danish part of the Wadden Sea. In Legacy, the data is visualized annually in the form of an amber ring that is as thick as that year’s rise in sea level.
The Wadden Sea is the world’s largest contiguous tidal flat area and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Rising sea levels threaten this unique ecosystem. Legacy will serve as an annual reminder of our shared natural heritage and the need to take action on climate change.
Andri Snær Magnason is concerned with climate change across long time spans and generations, often working with perspectives of 100 years or more. He is particularly interested in the relationship between ice and water, and in how this can be communicated both scientifically and poetically in order to better understand the future of the climate. In his book On Time and Water, he interweaves personal narratives with natural and climate science to frame changes in the oceans and the climate within both human and geological perspectives—including how melting ice sheets and rising sea levels impact nature and society on a global scale.
BIO
Andri Snær Magnason is an Icelandic writer (b. 1973, Reykjavík). He has worked across almost all genres, from poetry and non‑fiction to children’s literature and science fiction, and is also a documentary filmmaker and environmental activist. Magnason is the only author to have received the Icelandic Literary Prize in all categories. He has also received major literary awards in France, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Italy, including the Philip K. Dick Honorary Award in the U.S. and the Premio Tiziano Terzani in Italy.
Magnason wrote the text for the memorial plaque for OK, the first glacier in Iceland to lose its status as a glacier—and its symbolic sense of permanence—due to climate change. A film adaptation of his work On Time and Water premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and will be screened at CPH:DOX in March 2026.