It’s 17 June 2023 and the Pride procession in Fagernes has reached its destination: Valdres Folk Museum. The Pride flag has been hoisted for the opening of a new exhibition, “Queer Folk Dress”, which is visiting the museum on the first stage of its tour. This film about Queer folk dress explores the Queer perspective that underlies the exhibition project.
In the film we meet the duojár Anna-Stina Svakko at the opening of the exhibition. She is a member of the exhibition’s panel of experts on folk dress. According to Svakko, linking Pride to the exhibition opening was an obvious decision.
‘The link will help people in the local community to see Queerness as something positive.
The organizers of “Queer folk dress” invited six artists to explore and challenge the customs, identities and craft traditions associated with traditional costumes. In this film about the exhibition project, we find out about the tensions that arise as the artists encounter traditions that prioritize group identities over the identities of individuals. Questions relating to outsiderness, inclusion, and one’s own situation within a tradition become important themes in the artists’ works. Christian Blandhoel explains how his contribution, Sub-national Folk Costume, could also be described as an outsider folk costume.
‘I’ve created a very illustrative costume that also reflects my identity – the chubby boy who never got his own national costume when he was little.
Besides being richly decorated with peace, love and rainbow patches, and pins that have personal meaning, it is equipped with a bulletproof vest and baseball bat. Blandhoel explains how, following the terrorist attack of summer 2022 on the London Pub, a popular gay bar in Oslo, in which two people were killed, he realized that an outsider folk costume also needed to provide the wearer with protection.
This film about Queer folk dress explains some of the reasons why the exhibition’s theme is potentially controversial. For example, as Anna-Stina Svakko notes, it is about crossing boundaries with a Queer and artistic presence. Crossing boundaries requires us to challenge tradition, which proved a daunting prospect for several of the artists, who had a question for the folk-dress experts: ‘Can I do this?’ Anna-Stina believes this is precisely why the exhibition came about, to push boundaries and encourage daring.
