A cultural, artistic, collaboration between three organizations working with persons with intellectual disabilities in Sweden, Poland and Germany. The main goals for this project were to form an international orchestra and perform our music on six venues in three countries.

This work Different Sounds by Torbjorn Bellind is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

I am working at Medis 5, a daily cultural activity center in Stockholm, Sweden. My main areas are art, music, film making and international collaborations. I have studied anthroplogy, music, digital media and visual arts, which I have a lot of use for at work. 

Medis 5 produces artistic, visual, musical, poetic and educational events. Musicians, photographers, artists, actors, singers, writers, web designers, animators, and filmmakers work together. We put on stage performances, art exhibitions, and make films. We write texts and compose music, music videos, and much more. 
For us, it is important that every participantis responsible for their own part in the outputwe present. Our staff is educated in the respective areas we work within, supporting the progress of our projects. Above all, we have fun sharing knowledge and working together to achieve a common goal. Our ambition is to create educational, creative and notable productions, reaching a wide audience.

After two and a half years of writing, interviewing, painting, rehearsing, performing and doing workshops, this project has now come to an end. The intellectual output of our work is an animated film, and a printed book, as well as a multimedia book and an e-book — all within the theme of inclusion.

The project's name came from one of the participants at our Polish partner organization. He had the opportunity to perform with professional jazz musicians and contributed exactly that — different sounds. Many of the participants have a long-going tradition of playing improvised music, sometimes using odd instruments, and even non-instruments. A few of these have been built by themselves. We have now explored what we can achieve with our combined abilities, and what each person could contribute.

Writing stories and making a movie

The book presents stories written by members of each national team. One of these tales has been transformed into an animated film, using paintings by several participants. They made backgrounds, characters and a logotype for the project. The Kulczyński Filmlab in Gdansk helped us to set our characters in motion. It was a great experience, making, collecting and discussing the art, for everyone involved. We also recorded a narrator and music for the film.

Interviews

While working with the book, we held a number of group discussions, trying to answer important questions about art, artistry, music and inclusion. Some examples of subjects:

• To work as an artist and to meet the audience
• Artistic integrity and different ways of expression
• Inclusion, tolerance and respect for differences
• What requirements can be placed on you as a performer?
• What does integrity mean?
• What is a respectful interaction?
• Do you have any personal experience with disrespect?

In order to highlight the thoughts of each creative person, we collected the results and presented them as a part of the book.

Music

Initially, we met in Gdansk, Poland, to find a common ground for the music. We decided on mixing the qualities of each workplace, the strong points of the existing music being performed at each workplace, to form a new orchestra featuring 23 people.

At first, we rehearsed separately, and then merge it all together when meeting in each country. When fully prepared, we performed our pieces in Gdansk (PL), Warsaw (PL), Bad Homburg (DE) Oberursel (DE) and twice in Stockholm (SE).

Workshops

While meeting each other for meetings and music rehearsals, we also gave workshops in percussive instruments, playing techniques, electronic music technology, etc. Part from a great learning process, this gave our participants an important opportunity to educate each other; to become the leaders of the process.

Conclusion

Working within new as well as familiar fields and involving as many creative minds as possible, this project has given us many long-lasting impressions. It has been a great learning process for us all, both leaders and participants.

The multimedia book, e-book and animated film are available on the website: differentsoundsproject.com
The printed book is available in selected libraries in Sweden, Poland and Germany.
All formats in four languages.
The music will be released later this year.

Best wishes,

Torbjörn Bellind
Producer at Medis 5
Stockholm, Sweden
medis5.org