Here is a performance image of the Norwegian premier of Valkyrie. Finn, Me
and Hellen on stage with Valkyrie puppets.The up coming video footage should be
a lot better. It was a lot of fun and we hope to keep doing it in
other venues.
This is a shot of my Valkyrie Installation with the Fiord in the background with ferries. I put it up today and it will be part of the Summer Arts Festival in Stavanger until 30th. I will,hopefully get a chance to perform the play to it.
For the last 35 years I have been a witness, as an artist, filmmaker and photojournalist, to many of the worst human conflicts. At the frontline in Rwanda, Somalia,Cambodia,Nicaragua, Palestine, South Africa, Northern Ireland,vSouthern Lebanon, East Timor, Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan. The strongest images that remain with me are always of mothers fleeing from the violence with a baby or small child clutched to their breast. In this ‘Valkyrie’ Installation there is a white female figure representing all these women victims of war and she is surrounded by the red burning Valkyrie Puppets. The Valkyrie heads look like they have been moulded from blood, body organs and molten volcanic lava. The bodies attached to the heads are made from red and black cloth and ribbon allowing the wind to move them like nature’s puppet master.
This installation is an ancient prayer for all these mothers and children innocently caught in the cross fire and bombs. While placing it in Peaceful Stavanger I have had tears on my cheeks for the innocents being killed every day in Syria. The images of children used as shields on tanks and being slaughtered with their limbs cut off takes me back to a place I never like to revisit; my memories of being at the Kibeho Massacre in Rwanda.Valkyrie asks “when will the madness of war ever cease”.
My work in war zones started because of the puppet shows I would put on when I was a kid to raise money for the Red Cross. These shows raised a lot of money when I was just in primary school and I read everything about the work the Red Cross were doing for the victims of wars around the world. This made me want to dedicate my life to ending war and using my talents as an artist for this purpose.
It has been my dream to see ‘Valkyrie’ installed in Norway and now here it is in Stavanger with the beautiful fiord in the background. There are too many memorials to soldiers and their sacrifice and very few for the innocent victims of conflict.
When I was in Stavanger last year I wrote a play called ‘Valkyrie’ and hope to someday perform it with these sculptured puppets as part of the theatre set.
George Gittoes.