Five artists - from the Faroe Islands, Denmark, Sweden and Finland found each other through the Platform Gátt meet up in Reykjavík in November 2021. It was the curiosity for each other's artistic practices that sparked an interest in collaborating. The aim is to create an interdisciplinary piece of work where we wish to fully integrate the artistic practices of dance, music composition and film. The form that the project takes will be flexible and dynamic. Together we will work in a way that allows the body of work to exist in multiple constellations. The result will be a 28-minute-long video art installation which will include originally composed music and original choreography, that can be set up as a piece on its own, but can also be performed live. 

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Interest and Theme

In the Faroe Islands as well as most of the Nordic countries, we take pride in our nature and living symbiotically with our surroundings. We market ourselves as unspoiled and untamed and find pride in our rich history told through sagas and myths. Meanwhile we are living in an increasingly modernised technological age - where social media rules and if you didn’t take a picture of your hike it didn’t happen. We wish to play with the comical absurdity in our current reality. Imagine the contrast between taking selfies of heavy drag inspired make up against the backdrop of wild waves breaking against cliffs. 

The project is female led and it will therefore be instinctively exploring our lived experiences of female identity in the Nordic countries. We want to suggest that these two following ideas are in a way the two contradicting standards and expectations one encounters by being female; the natural and pure and the superficial and materialistic. 

Inspired by myths, sagas and cultural images such as the Little Mermaid or the Seal Woman, we interpreted these icons into strong female characters with a twist of pop culture references. Emphasising the superficial through the use of makeup - we want to explore that which is inherently feminine in an over dramatised way. The feeling of being watched and judged constantly. Playing with gender roles and the expectations women face in our society - across national borders.

Method

Part of the project is to investigate how we can create and work within a flat power structure and see how that shapes the piece. In the First working period each of the artists had a sharing of their practise. This was done through workshops that related to the interest and theme. This then shaped the sound, video and movement material. 

The point of entrance for the sound will be to see the movements as layers of change and layers of twists that can be translated into music. Think of music as both sound and action. Likewise, the filming will be an integrated part of the choreography, in the pursuit of creating an immersive experience for the spectator. We will be investigating how this approach can create echo-layers both visually and in the soundscape, giving the work artistic density. 

The sound will be partly composed with a string quartet and partly through the audio recordings, made during the 1st working period, of the dancerand the sounds of the faroese nature. We will therefore be working with physicalised sounds using breath work as a way to embody the soundscape. The choreography will be inspired by the embodiment of the interplay between the natural and the artificial.

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Connection Between the Nordic Countries

The project will be created and produced in the Faroe Islands and we will have our working space in the Nordic House of the Faroe Islands. The video work-in-progress will be exhibited at Reykjavík Arts Festival through Platform Gátt. The Performance piece will be shared at the Nordic House in the Faroe Islands and the official premiere will be at Koncertkirken in Copenhagen, with the aim of sharing the work in all the Nordic countries and globally.  We hope that this work can live on in exhibitions in all of the Nordic countries, as well as this work becoming a way to share contemporary Nordic art with the rest of the world. 

With this project we are seizing the initiative of nordic collaborations that were established by Platform Gátt. Thus, we are working on making the connections long lasting, which was one of the key goals for Platform Gátt. We see this as a crucial part in a sustainable Nordic art environment as we are developing and building on top of something that is in the beginning phase of being established. By doing so, we are utilising and making the most out of the time, energy, money and CO2 footprint already invested.          

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