The Ride of the Valkyries

​

In Norse mythology, the Valkyries were warrior women who flew over battlefields, choosing which souls would ascend to Valhalla. This installation draws on that image of fate and flight, anchored by Richard Wagner’s iconic music, The Ride of the Valkyries.

The music’s presence is woven through the display - stencilled onto the white voile that runs across the floor and printed as a pianola roll  stretched across the work on the back wall depicting scenes of destruction in Gaza, centring around their grand piano. The only one of its kind in Gaza, this piano now stands silent, its strings deliberately cut. The circular notes of the music resemble bullet holes - a haunting echo of both sound and violence.

Wagner’s music, historically linked to the Nazi regime and often used in war films like Apocalypse Now and Excalibur, reinforces the idea of history repeating itself - of art, war, and memory entangled.

The white dress in the display represents innocent lives caught in the cycle of conflict. Hanging from a domestic clothes-drying frame, the pianola roll unfurls like a dance - continuous, inevitable.

A small canvas, pressed against the window, shows notes dissolving into fragments - bullets, perhaps - yet leading toward the figure of a Phoenix. A symbol of hope, of rebirth. A wish that something might rise from the ashes, for the people of Gaza.

​