Valkyria

About What?

Valkyria is me, I am a fashion & textile designer and an organic farmer. I have my education from Sogn – Jord og Hagebruksskule in Aurland, Norway and from Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti in Milan, Italy.

I will make clothes, and art. I will let the two forms cross and create wearable art.

I love movement. I desire to create clothes that are made to move, that are comfortable to move in and that looks beautiful in movement.

I tried for a long time to get a normal life and a safe 9 to 5 job. It killed my spirit, my creativity, and all the nice little things in life that made my life worth living.

As I grew up I had no choice but to learn to really love art and appreciate a free life. In my bloodline there is no woman that was not a skilled crafter. And I had the pleasure of growing up in a time enclave of the best spirit of the 1970 s. I never noticed the 1980 s.

For me everything was peace and love.

I always loved clothes. But more than clothes I preferred to wear my favorite accessories, cats and fresh flowers. Only my cats and fresh flowers.

When I was wearing trousers, I loved the ones with big pockets so that I could gather treasures in them. Such as all sorts of insects, spiders, snail houses, stones, feathers and metallic colored ladybugs.

My reasons to forsake the plain life are of course legated to my background. Other motives are:

About philosophy

I am in my work as in my life indeed inspired by Pippi Longstocking. What inspires me is not exactly what she does or says, but the way she does what she does and the way she says what she says. I mean her philosophy, her view of life.

While the woman that represents the governments social care always notes errors and ignores good sides, cleans out weeds, uses a separating language, builds unsafe relations, empties the children for emotional energy and creates shame and fear, Pippi on the other hand does like she says, the other way around!

Pippi notes good sides and ignores errors, she fertilizes the soil, uses an including language, builds safe relations, spreads energy, fills the children with emotional energy and creates pride in the end.

This way to analyze Astrid Lindgren`s characters is following Bengt Starring in his book “Empowerment in theory and praxis”.

About Aesthetics

I wish to find an aestetic language that is really alive, in the way that it will invite the wearer or user to play or to have fun, to enjoy life. The wearer would also be encouraged to enjoy him or herself. I find it important that my clothes are elegant, comfortable and holding a high quality.

I also mean that the map should be made after the terrain, and not the other way around. I mean, the body is the terrain, the clothes are the map. It can often feel humiliating to try to get the body to fit an exact size. The body shape, color, the personality, the spirit of a person is my aesthetic terrain.

About Ethics

The textile industry keeps cutting salaries and rights for their workers. Anti Slavery International means that as much as 27 million people lives as slaves today.

The conditions in the textile sector is alerting.

http://www.antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/default.aspx

On the link above you can read more about modern slavery.

http://www.apparelsearch.com/human_rights.htm

This link provides information especially about the condition in the textile industry.

For me it is important to contribute to a more just world by producing everything in a fair way.

All fibers are recycled or from organic farming. I am producing the clothes myself alone or in collaboration with other artists or crafts persons.

I will use every possibility I have to speak the truth about the situation of the textile industry today.

I will also be aware of letting the ethic become a natural part of my aesthetic language.

Due to my opinion these two very similar words have had a tendency to become some kind of antagonists when it comes to fashion. I will use what I know about the world and my care for the world as a rich source of aesthetic inspiration.

About politics

Politic and ethic is for me two sides of the same coin. I see art as a deliberating possibility to speak out. Art talks right to the receiver, and the dialog moves from the creator of the piece. And the work talks in the absence of the creator. It is often most non verbal form of conversation, even when words are used in art they are given another value than words in for instance a political debate. As I see it art is a true form of communication, it can not lie like words. It is far to direct and obvious, although it works and talks in so many levels, that it can create unforeseen reflections and reactions in the receiver.

Many times I see that art also can touch themes that due to the main stream of contemporary taste is taboo.

What is important about that? Well in the system of populist politics every view that is not that of the main stream is a possible taboo. Because the politicians can loose power and support defending minority concerns. And therefor we get the majority's dictatorship. There is no way forward for the minorities if they go by regular political channels. Art on the other side thrives best at the side of the main stream. So here in this crossing point it is fertile soil.

I wish to use my social skills and my interest in social conditions to contribute to the creation of an alternative way of producing and consuming.

About mythology

In the creation of my new self, I become aware of the meaning of my name, I became aware of how my history lingers in every move I take forward into the future.

My birth name Gunn, means combat and is the name of one of the Valkyries.

They are known as the helpers of Odin. Odin is known as the king of the Norse Gods, he is the head of the God family called Æser. He is an immigrated God. His origin is to be Asiatic, therefor the name Æser, and he is the God of war.

He once dreamed about the end of the world, Ragnarok, where the good had to fight the bad. He saw the end of the world as we know it. He saw his own death. And even if he also saw the beginning of a new world in the ashes of the old fallen world, a new world for his son Vidar and many other survivors, he got scared, and wanted to prepare his forces in a best possible way. He ordered the construction of Valhalla. An enormous hall where he wanted to house fallen heroes, train them in combat, and in that way build himself an army. He ordered the Valkyries to ride out on their flying horses to collect fallen heroes.

The Valkyries had to choose the best amongst men, the ones that had been fighting a fair fight.

The ones courageous enough to have given their lives in combat. No one that died in a bed and none that had stabbed their enemies in their back.

Backstabbing is a Niddåd, an act of absolutely NO honor.

The Valkyries never liked their new task. Before the Asiatic God showed up in Åsgard, the family of the Norse gods was called Vaner. And they were absolutely peaceful. The name of the first Norse goddess was Nerthus, and she was the God of fridr and love. Fridr is the old Norse word for peace, but where peace means the absence of war, fridr includes good times with nice weather and enough food, love and growth for the common culture. Peace and love, good food and a good laughter for everybody.

She was the God of everything. Of life aswell as of death. Her daughters was the goddesses Frøya and Odin`s wife Frigg. When Nerthus was the only goddess, the Valkyries was her helpers. And there was a matriarchal way of ruling the peaceful north.

Odin came with bad times of war and cold weather.

There was so much war among humans and the Gods themselves.

They made a peace agreement among the Vana Gods and the Åsa Gods to save everybody from a certain death. A peace agreement between patriarchal and matriarchal families of gods.

And the Valkyries ought to obey Odin, and search for his war heroes.

As there are rarely anymore heroes amongst the fallen soldiers of our times, the Valkyries are rebelling.

We are riding out on our flying horses, and can never find anyone.

Soldiers placing land mines, bombing civil houses, schools and hospitals. Killing the children and raping the parents. We, the Valkyrias, see no honor in destroying farm fields with toxic gases or atomic waste or letting entire populations starve behind massive concrete walls.

We have through this hundreds of years in the service of Odin learned to combat for what we believe in.

The Valkyries were the helpers of the Goddess of fridr and love, and will now fight for the return of our true Goddess.

The return of the respect for the feminine powers and qualities.

The return of the respect for the women, Our mother earth and for all of our brothers and sisters, daughters and sons.

This fight is a fight for respect for the good powers in every living being. It is a fight for dignity and love. This fight will not be fought armed. As the main issue of this war is to end the way of thinking in war terms, to end the presence of war in every part of our culture and everyday life.

I will start with the clothes and style. I will create clothes for the helpers of Nerthus, the Goddess of Fridr and Love. Multiforms for my sisterhood.

Valkyriesystre is dialect from the north west coast of Norway. It means the sisterhood of Valkyries. Welcome to the sisterhood of valkyries.