Once Globular, 2009, still images from 16mm film

Costume, 2009, collage on paper, 32x23,4cm

A treble globe of bubbles, 2009, collage on paper, 44,6 x 28,8 cm

Once Globular, 2009, installation view, Sparebankstiftelsen DnB Nor Stipendutstilling, Oslo Fine Art Society, Oslo 2009. Photo: Vegard Kleven

Once Globular
2009, 16mm film transferred to SD video, 4min 24s, mute

Once Globular

2009, 16mm film transferred to SD video, 4min 24s, mute

The starting point for the film Once Globular was Virginia Woolf’s personal diary entries from her visit to Constantinople in 1906. Woolf was fascinated by the Byzantine architecture, especially the monument Santa Sophia. She described Santa Sophia as seen from a boat:

like a treble globe of bubbles frozen solid, floating out to meet us. For it is fashioned in the shape of some fine substance, thin as glass, blown in plump curves; save that it is also as substantial as a pyramid.

In Woolf´s To the Lighthouse, 1927, the character Mrs. Ramsey, is associated to the dome of Santa Sophia. In the film panoramic shots of the city landscape of Istanbul is crosscut with shots of a woman dressed in a costume inspired by Hagia Sophia.