LIFE-BOATS for my life
by performance artist, Inga Gerner Nielsen

LIFE-BOATS for My Life
by performance artist Inga Gerner Nielsen

Here is my deeply felt personal reasoning for the necessity of the Life-boats vision:

I need them. Each of Marit Benthe Norheim’s three LIFE-BOATS: The old one – My Ship is Loaded with Memories. The one in mid-life – My Ship is Loaded with Life. And the young one – My Ship is Loaded with Longing. The latter, a manifestation of the stage in life I myself occupy as a young woman. Here, just at the beginning of the next phase of my life, I feel an urgent need to see all three ships sailing on the same waters. Separate as bodies, but always in connection with one another.

I long for the stories from different generations of women that LIFE-BOATS will carry and transport from harbor to harbor. And I am inspired by the vision of their journey from Denmark, down through Europe, and back again.

I look forward to contributing with the dreams I have been overflowing with, and the stories of how some of them have already unfolded as art projects. Most of all, I need to see and listen to them. In order to move forward in life, I now need to gain knowledge of others’ dreams and experiences – how they brought them to life, the paths they have taken, and how they navigated the obstacles along the way. I am weighed down by a sense of a missing transmission between the young and the old. As if our generation must move forward alone. Perhaps it is because I belong to a generation that does not wish to listen to the older generation? Perhaps the generations before us are still so busy carving their own path that they have no time to hear our dreams and offer their best advice? I believe this may be linked to the lack of forums in which we can meet and converse. Because every woman, young or old, lives her own separate life – and we so rarely find ourselves in the small rooms where stories of life were once shared.

LIFE-BOATS can become such spaces for us. They can move and open themselves as forums, as spaces people may not even have realized they were missing. They hold the possibility for all of us to be heard where we are in life. They can allow us to share our longings, our lives, and our memories.

I long for the day when I can look back on a life gathered together in LIFE-BOATS.

Inga Gerner Nielsen, January 2015