One Sunday, in the summer of 1918, Ingelil's grandfather was taken to the zoo. There they saw a white ape in a cage. It had just been captured in the jungle, and was regarded as a sensation.

Quite alone, with only a small fly for company, it sat in the cage with bowed head. Then the autumn came, and one cold November day they read in the newspapers that the white ape was dead. Ingelil's grandfather kept the article.

Years later, Ingelil, in possession of both the newspaper cutting and her grandfather's story, still could not reconcile herself with the little white ape’s death. So she started to paint, and gave the little white ape a beautiful last dream.

When ready, Ingelil’s story will be retold through music and verse by her friend and translator, Rowen Sivertsen. The verses are complete, but the paintings and songs are in process, and will take a while. On the following pages, we present a few samples of the music.

Go on into a dream

Note from Rowen:
When Ingelil first started painting the little white ape's dream, my son was 6 years old and preoccupied with the subject of death. I quickly realised that this would be a much more attractive way of bringing about a good conversation about death with him than the books on the market that dealt with death in a very prosaic "Sally's Granny Dies" type of approach.

Together we could follow the little white ape through his last dream, and draw his last breath with him, and never loose sight of the beauty.

This story also gave rise to a long and deep debate about the ethics of taking wild animals from the jungle and imprisoning them.

Sadly, both Ingelil and I have both been too busy in the intervening years to follow up the project and my son is now 26! But at last we have the time and the will to blow the dust off the old paintings and music of this and many other projects that have been lying in the drawers of two houses here at Hellvik.

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