The bride of nature

Ditte Marie Walter Tygesen

The bride of nature

Ditte Marie Walter Tygesen

Denmark / The Danish National School of Performing Arts

An artistic research designed by Ditte Marie Walter Tygesen, developed at The Danish National School of Performing Arts in collaboration with tailor Michael Nøhr.

The costume is based on an excerpt from the book "Orlando" by Virginia Woolf, published in 1928. This costume is the story of Orlando becoming one with nature and defying gender roles. In the artistic research of the text I expanded my knowledge of materials, form and techniques.

'But there were only the rooks flaunting in the sky. She loved wild birds’ feathers. She had used to collect them as a boy. She picked it up and stuck it in her hat. The air blew upon her spirit somewhat and revived it. As the rooks went whirling and wheeling above her head and feather after feather fell gleaming through the purplish air, she followed them, her long cloak floating behind her, over the moor, up the hill. She had not walked so far for years. Six feathers had she picked from the grass and drawn between her fingers and pressed to her lips to feel their smooth, glinting plumage, when she saw, gleaming on the hill-side, a silver pool, mysterious as the lake into which Sir Bedivere flung the sword of Arthur. A single feather quivered in the air and fell into the middle of it. Then, some strange ecstasy came over her. Some wild notion she had of following the birds to the rim of the world and flinging herself on the spongy turf and there drinking forgetfulness, while the rooks’ hoarse laughter sounded over her. She quickened her pace; she ran; she tripped; the tough heather roots flung her to the ground. Her ankle was broken. She could not rise. But there she lay content. The scent of the bog myrtle and the meadow-sweet was in her nostrils. The rooks’ hoarse laughter was in her ears. ‘I have found my mate,’ she murmured. ‘It is the moor. I am nature’s bride’

By picking keywords from the text such as the moor, the pool, feathers, she used to be a he, I made an aesthetic frame of reference from which I made exaggerated abstractions with the use of various textiles and materials.

By working with subjects such as non-gender and non-humanity I am aiming to shake the expectations of the human body and the traditional idea of figure. Hence in extending the fingers and limiting the movement of the arms and legs I encourage a certain pattern of performativity investigating the aforementioned themes.

Bio: Ditte Marie Walter Tygesen

website: https://www.dittetygesen.dk/

email: ditte​tygesen@gmail.com

instagram: @hekseditte

I'm a Copenhagen based visual artist and designer in between theater, costume, sculpture and textiles. Soon to be educated set and costume designer at The Danish National School of Performing Art, I have now fallen in love with both sides of the worlds of costumes; the design and the making (that I like to call ​the​ ​sculpturing)​. I often use costumes as the actual scenography and the body as the stage. Therefore my costumes, and other works, are often very theatrical and excessive.