A Thousand Ancestors is the culmination of a long-standing collaboration between photographer Michelle Arcila and musician Eivind Opsvik which synthesize the strong influence of visual imagery on music, and vice versa. Hailing from Costa Rica and Norway, two different countries with distinct cultural traditions and folklore, A Thousand Ancestors explores family history and the continuing influence of ancestral narratives on the present generation. The project is a limited edition box set (numbered edition of 500) designed by Espen Friberg containing a ten-track vinyl LP (plus a CD and download card), ten photographic prints, each of which correspond to a track on the record, and a poster. Released by Brooklyn based record label; Loyal Label. The artists aim to slow time for the observer, and allow him/her to perhaps uncover distant, buried memories of their own during the encounter. A beautiful example of this can be experienced in “A Strange Gratitude”-- the second track and print on A Thousand Ancestors pairs a steady, escalating tension of bass strings with a slightly ominous, dreamlike image of two silver-haired figures obscured by a thin veil of dying tree branches in the foreground, hazy snow-covered mountains stretching behind.