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Background story

"Back in 2011 I decided to leave Norway and start a new life somewhere else, but I didn’t know where. So I decided to do an experiment based on this quote I had found: “Every journey has a secret destination that the traveler doesn’t know about”. So the plan was to not have a plan, and just set out on a road trip and see where I´d end up. I also decided to document everything with a small video camera.

 

Before leaving I soldpancakes in the street for about a year to save up for my Volkswagen van, and then I drove off into the world. I made my way through Denmark, Holland, Scotland, and England, selling pancakes and singing in the street. And then, for some reason, I got a strong feeling that I should take the boat to Ireland...

On my first day in Ireland, I was driving around looking for a place to park, when this man came up to me and asked if I was lost. I said no, not really, I just need a place to park. And then he pointed to this laneway, (off Thomas Street in the Liberties, Dublin 8) and said I could park there for free. But it was kind of narrow and filled with cars, so my van got stuck and I ended up reversing into the wall and smashing my backlight...

 

I was swearing to myself when, suddenly, I saw this horse come out of the wall (?!) I didn´t understand what the horse was doing there, but I was filled with this feeling of freedom and love. So I ran over to the horse, and soon I was surrounded by this group of 15 year old boys. And there was one older guy who asked if I wanted to come for a spin, and he took me all around the block with a horse and two-wheeler, dodging buses and cars. And when we came back, he showed me the stables, and there were actually 5 horse yards and about 20 horses, hidden behind the walls, right in the middle of the city! And from that day on I was hooked. I kept going back to this laneway (“the Lane”) with the horse yards almost every day, and I played my music for them, and they let me get up on the horses. And the whole time I was filming as much as I could, because I felt I just had to show this laneway with the horses and the boys to the world.

After about a month of hanging out in "the Lane" I decided to get a flat and stay in Dublin. And a few months later, I got my own horse, Danu, and now I was jockeying round the streets every day. And I felt happy, like I’d found my secret destination..."

 

-Kristin Vollset (aka The Musical Slave)

 

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