Back story
A cold winter’s morning in 1883, young Frida Hansen, a privileged wife, and mother of three, walks into her winter-garden and snatches off a precious, white camellia. She presses it firmly between the pages of a bible. «It was a funeral,» she says, years later. «Now I have buried my passion for flowers, perhaps the whole of my previous life.»
The night before, Frida has been informed that the family company has been declared bankrupt. In addition to all her worldly goods, within two years, she tragically loses two of her children in town epidemics.
Over the years, Frida Hansen reinvents herself and becomes an internationally acclaimed tapestry artist at a challenging time in history as a working woman. Soon after her death, her career is mysteriously forgotten - until now.
Audience experience
'Finding Frida' is an animated immersive VR-experience where the expressive avant-garde artworks of Frida Hansen lead the audience into a beautiful, tactile world through the past and present, blending art and reality. Based on a true story, the experience explores the strength in us humans’ creative power through a virtual encounter with the forgotten artist’s ghost.
The audience is invited to explore a run-down house, where intuitive interactions can activate memories. Guided by a little girl, who we later understand is Frida’s great-great-granddaughter, we meet the artist as she lingers in her atelier, restless and conflicted. Encapsulated deep inside her, she carries with her the grief and losses that paradoxically became her creative driving force. As we interact with her and the environment, her tapestries open up as portals to a symbolic, imaginative world, where life events and art come together.
Through this virtual meeting in which the audience rediscovers Frida’s world of art, she eventually comes to peace with her life and the role she was given. In return, the audience is encouraged to reflect on how creativity and freedom have impacted their lives.
Specifics
The experience is intended as a room-scale installation. The tactility and partly transparent quality of Frida Hansen’s weaving technique is reflected both in the virtual world and in the physical set.
The prototype will be developed for the Oculus Quest 2, using a combination of techniques: 3D CG, 6DOF VR, and possibly
photogrammetry, volumetric video, and VFX.
If, due to Covid-19, the work can not be presented in an exhibition space, it will be a headset experience only.
About the writer
Cecilie Levy is an award-winning scriptwriter and currently engaged as an artistic (Ph.D.) researcher at the Norwegian film school.
Educated at the Dutch Film and Television Academy she has lived and worked in Amsterdam since the 1990´s. Her work includes shorts, children’s films, children’s series, and television dramas. The films won prizes at international festivals (Lucas Award, Gilde Film, Florence, Critics Award, Grimstad) and were broadcasted nationally and internationally (ARTE). Her short film 'Mimoun' was nominated for an International Emmy® Kids Awards and won a. o. the prestigious, European PRIX JEUNESSE.
In 2018 she was awarded a four-year scholarship from the Norwegian Artistic Research Program to do practice-based research into storytelling for virtual reality.
Her latest film is due to premiere at the Dutch Film Festival in 2021.
Team
'Finding Frida' is directed by award-winning documentary maker Hilde K. Kjøs, and made possible through collaboration with Stargate Media and producer Bjørn-Morten Nerland.
External links
Frida Hansen on Wikipedia
Frida Hansen at The National Museum
Cecilie Levy on IMDb
Hilde K. kjøs on IMDb
Stargate Media
