The creation of a fairy tale in western culture is the act of editing, adding and subtracting.
Stories of enchanted forests and happily ever evolved from a much darker and deeper place. Moral lessons end with rewards while in earlier times the tale had a more sinister result.
The fairy tale has morphed into many shapes for the last 300 years while holding on to its origin story.
Same goes for religion, political systems and morality.
What lives is the spirit of the times in each variation.
I want to create a fairy tale narrative that blends with the tradition of the Icelandic Sagas, where conflict and interests are stated plainly while allowing for nuances of complications.
The story I want to tell is of a fjord that on the surface looks idyllic and natural. But at a deeper glance we find a place full of stories that tend to polarise public opinion. The fjord was a geopolitical catalyst in WW2, harbouring the huge shipping convoys en route to Europe. It became a strategic point in Icelands development as a heavy industry haven with cheap energy for aluminum smelting while world renowned fly fishing, tourism, farming and growing leisure communities breed opposing views on what the fjord should and should not be. Is the active whale hunting station in the bottom of the fjord the symbol of a modern day villain, or is the the whale killing fishermen in the Icelandic fairy tale Rauðhöfði (Redhead) the real threat?
I want to create a visual fairy tale that makes the viewer confront their own fairy tale view of the world, of how they instinctively perceive the world through a simply told story of complications along with visuals of landscapes.
We are living through times where the fairy tale of nearly every part of society is is in need of re-evaluation, if for nothing more then to confirm the validity of our own view of the world.