Hanne Frey Husø has a background spanning the visual arts, literature, and puppetry. She has studied extensively and her work has been exhibited throughout Europe. ‘Being interested in books, writing technologies and oral transmission of myths and stories – I started working with paper as I studied Textile Arts. I have been working with paper for 20 years - building scenographies, making flat writing surfaces, spinning paper - as well as teaching botany to students about paper and cellulose and reflecting on paper as a medium of archiving knowledge and information.
Dream Traveller was created in response to life challenges experienced by Hanne Frey as a member of an ethnic minority in Norway.
In her design notes, Hanne says: ‘I wrote down all I had experienced from different people with power. In order to neutralise the evil acts I described, I put in beautiful dreams about what I had experienced. I travelled in sleep and mirrored the cruel reality with allegories in sleep. Then I went through the text I had written and erased the acts – and kept the dreams. …Then I wrote the text again by hand - and as I was writing by hand, I shortened the text. The dreams I dreamt were in the first take from above: at a distance, as if I were not really there. Looking at what was happening to me as if I were a stranger. The second time I dreamt, I was inside the situation, feeling with my body. The third time I dreamt I realized what the dreams were symbolizing.’
‘I’m an ethnical Norwegian Muslim, so I wear hijab. I wanted to make this dream travelling into a hijab. I span kraft paper as a three metres long warp for a web. Then I span green paper into leaves and a pale red colour into flowers constructing the weft. On the warp I wrote down the third shortened version of the text. As I start weaving, the text disappears. As if I’m making these last two years into something beautiful. Making a monster shine in flowers and green leaves.’
Materials: Dress - handmade, plant colored kozo, gold leaf, pen, water colour, silk. Hijab - handspun kraft paper, silk paper, water colour.
Hanne-Frey Huso website https://www.waspwriting.com/
Attachment – Poem 1 (woven into the hijab)
Attachment – Poem 2 (text on the dress)