Pippi Longstocking, The Strongest Girl in the World

“The character of Pippi Longstocking was originally created by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren and represents her socially subversive ideas that correlate to and inspire my own notion of radicalism. In the literary version of Pippi Longstocking, she is portrayed as rebellious, funny and independent, with the ability to invert social circumstances and defy the conventions of normal behavior. By extracting Pippi from her original source and projecting her character onto the contemporary, Danish sound and performance artist, Tanja Schlander, allows for malleability by confronting, challenging and transforming the structures of power and authority in order to offer a new mode of liberation. Using Pippi’s own notion that she is “the strongest girl in the world” and that she doesn’t believe in artificial borders, we have documented her trying to move the huge concrete wall that separates Israel from the West Bank at Abu Dis. Pippi Longstocking’s action and attitude reflects the desire of so many individuals that seek to change the political and personal reality that confines them all over the globe, and she also represents the ultimate female hero because she dreams for positive change and is suggestive of transformations that can promote peace and unity. This project is comprised of many different documents that show Pippi’s anti-authoritarian acts and trays. One of them is her key magic phrases, which I believe has the power to change my reality whenever I invoke it: ‘l love my Life!’.”

Rona Yefman & Tanja Schlander