Freja Oline Østergaard

she/her

Danish, 2002

Thesis: Listen to My Silence

Here is the full work discription in its detailed form but if it is to long the first and last paragraph for the work "We all carry a butterfly inside" could also be enough:)

“We all carry a butterfly inside” is an installation which consists of an audio piece, sphenoid bones

and porcelain pieces. The sphenoid bone is hanging in the air in eye height, mirroring the butterfly

that we carry inside. The sound of breathing and fluxing wings moves around. It explores the

potential of the butterfly bone and the potential of resonance of the sound in space.

The sphenoid bone also referred to as “the butterfly bone” is the key bone of our skull. It's the bone

that keeps everything together. It sits above our air channel where we breathe in and out, above

where our voice travels from our body and out, the wings broadening up behind our eyes. I imagine

it moving, that it resonates inside of our skull when we speak, vibrating from the sound of our voice

and when we breathe, our breath blows in like wind through its wings. I imagine light going

through eyes, settling in with the sound. That all becomes one within.

The porcelain pieces hang as drops on the wall referencing water as a symbol of transformation.

Each drop appears separate, individual yet in essence it is not part from the whole. It holds both

form and formlessness. Individuality and unity.

As the sound moves through space it decentralices listening. Sometimes the sound quiets down in

my hope to heighten the listener's awareness of their body within the silence. It takes away the

hierarchy of looking as an observer on something that is out of reach and brings the work into the

body. The work exists within the presence of the listener, shaped through the listener's attention and

imagination.

We all carry a butterfly inside, we all carry the ability to transition; through our mind, through our

breath, through our voice, through imagination, through light; as spiritual beings, listening to the

sounds that resonate and move the butterfly within us.

"Mending the gap between us"

We are sewing treads through each other’s ears. An act of creating, connecting, caring, and repairing. Feeling every movement, every breath, as we stitch, and pull the thread. A moment of presence, both bodily and emotional. Mending separations, individualism and the gap between us. We move closer and closer, until we are bound together. Connected. Slowly we become one.

Freja Oline Østergaard