From the Archive: Exclusive Portraits of Björk by the Sea in Long Island

Light and dark shape-shift across an oceanfront as a shadowplay of fashion, performance and personal expression erupts. At once as silent as a rock and as explosive as Eyjafjallajökull, Björk meets photographers Inez and Vinoodh and stylist Camilla Nickerson by the sea in Long Island for this unique and personal fashion story. Björk has been reconnecting to nature as she so often does when recording and developing new ideas. She argues that in the west, religion took nature out of music, giving it a mathematical structure, and she sees herself working to overturn those patterns. She writes and composes overlooking the ocean, the backdrop to so many of her most potent songs and lyrical ideas. When she recently tested her DNA to trace her ancestral history she found an extraordinary coastal pattern appeared in the migration of her ancestors. Like the fifth-century priestesses of Ukok who were buried with silver talismans and wore elaborate headdresses, Björk’s gaze is framed in a headdress that is both ancient and modern, created by recent graduate Bea Szenfeld. From the sculptural to the sublime, the fashion story evolves to reveal the fluid movement of fabric in nature, the wind carrying Björk and the clothes forward, the sand unbalancing her poise and providing a natural cushion when she falls.

Next year Björk will reveal a new multimedia recording project, a “science musical” and film that she has been developing with friend and director Michel Gondry. This year there are two collaborations: an EP with Dirty Projectors entitled Mount Wittenberg Orca, with all profits going to the National Geographic’s Ocean Initiative, and Fletta, a duet with Antony and the Johnsons. In the meantime, we reveal Björk in a moment of off-duty candour in this series of exclusive portraits, a reminder of her spiritual relationship with nature and her own phenomenal power to inspire.

This story originally appeared in the Autumn/Winter 2010 issue of AnOther Magazine. 

Hair: Christiann. Make-Up: TomPecheux for Estée Lauder. Photographic Assistants Shoji van Kuzumi, Joe Hume. Digital Technician: Brian Anderson. Lighting Technician: Jodukus Driessen. Studio Manager: Marc Kroop. Styling Assistants: Jorden Bickham, Kate Kaunitz. Make-Up Assistant: Junko Kioka. Production: Gabriel Hill at GE Projects.