The Danish singer-songwriter and record producer Nanna Øland Fabricius (b.1985) – better known by her stage name Oh Land – lives and works in New York City. In this interview she talks of her need for music as a means of tying together feelings and thoughts. She explains how she has always been very ambitious and energetic, with a high need to systematize and organize things.

In this interview Oh Land talks of her past as a professional ballerina, and about how long it took for her to accept that “your will isn’t enough” – sometimes things just cannot happen the way you want them to. In Oh Land’s case, she found music as she had to let go of the dream of being a dancer.

“Music is a way for me to really be in contact with the present,” Oh Land says and explains how music helped her get her feet back on the ground. “I needed something to tie my feelings and my thoughts together, and music is a very emotional language. It has the power of abstractions that words don’t have the same way.”

Oh Land’s first instruments were sounds from everyday objects. Sounds from her life. But “I never try to be an artist,” she says: “I don’t think that way of myself.” Instead Oh Land wants to remain true to herself, and who she is.

Finally Oh Land offers some advice to other young artists: Don’t let other people make your decisions. Work hard, keep insisting, and eventually people will know that you are serious. See things for what they are: “You are not a superstar, and you are not shit.”

Concert clips were recorded at Vega in Copenhagen, Denmark in December 2013.

Oh Land was interviewed in Copenhagen, Denmark by Marc-Christoph Wagner.

Camera: Klaus Elmer og Nikolaj Jungersen
Edited by: Kamilla Bruus
Produced by: Marc-Christoph Wagner
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, produced by Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2013.

Supported by Nordea-fonden