During the project “The Carrier Bag Theory of The Documentary Series - collecting fragments of connections between woman and landscape” I will develop a concept for a documentary series through my artistic practice by producing a series of audiovisual sketches.

The project will explore the relation between women and the particular landscape they come from through audiovisual sketches. 

The idea for the project was conceived in light of the current climate and ecological crisis, but is currently more concerned with thoughts of motherhood, matrencense and heritage connected to place and landscape. 

The project is based in the particular landscape around the Trondheim fjord and currently includes a small group of participants; some mothers, some not.  

I am looking at the concept of landscape and the concept of motherhood through the same lense, or as parallel concepts; both something that shapes a person and is a core reference one perceives the world through. But both dynamic concepts that can change and reassemble over time.  

Through collaborations with other artist - both in front of and behind the camera - the project aims to be a way to explore questions of belonging, heritage and changing identities, and a way to think of possible futures through the creation of new mythologies.

I am inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin’s feminist essay, The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, (Grove Press, 1989). Le Guin imagines the story, the novel as a container, a carrier bag, with room for a broad spectrum of elements unfolding and bearing meaning in relation to each other. When I first encountered the essay, it opened in me a feeling of infinite possibilities. More than a text about narrative, I view it as a life philosophy. It influences how I view myself as a female artist, and it affects how I view the relation between myself and participants, subjects, time and space.

The documentary series, as the novel, is an obvious carrier bag, by virtue of its potential to contain entire worlds. It has room and time to dig deep into the elements it carries. Characters, rooms, colours, moods, memories, a question, a fireplace, 23.00 at night, an iceberg, a song. The elements can be embraced and unfolded in relation to each other in a continuous process.

I am interested in what potential this approach can inspire through the development, production and publishing of the documentary series.

Marie Suul Brobakke is a conceptual documentary director. Most of my work develops as methodical investigations parallel with personal questions and themes I am exploring. I explore methods of creating constructed frameworks; by building or altering locations, and by staging situations and assignments for my participants.

Thematically I am interested in femininity and creation; heritage, trauma and healing; ancient cultural history and myths connecting people to land, language, body and each other across time.

I hold an MFA degree from The Norwegian Film School in Oslo (2020), and a BA degree from TV- & Media Production from DMJX in Copenhagen (2013).

Alongside my artistic practice I have several years’ experience teaching courses in documentary storytelling and video production at the Danish School of Media and Journalism, as well as years of experience in TV production as a TV director and video journalist in Copenhagen.