How Iceland Dealt with a Volcanic Financial Meltdown

Iceland treated its banks as being "too big to save."

In an art museum in Reykjavik stands a mural that looks, from a distance, like a pointillist painting. Those who venture closer discover that the work – a creation of artist Ragna Robertsdottir – is fashioned from tiny fragments of volcanic rock and ash from Mt. Katla, long considered one of Iceland’s most ferocious volcanoes. The mural offers a glimpse of Iceland’s genius in taking a powerful destructive force, such as a volcanic eruption, and transforming it through ingenuity and effort into art of breathtaking beauty. Robertsdottir’s creation could well serve as a metaphor for the country’s financial debacle, ten years ago this week, and its revival during the decade that has followed.

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/icelands-economic-recovery/