I am now sitting in Arlanda airport, Stockholm, waiting for my flight to Trondheim after an inspiring trip to Reykjavik, Iceland. A five hour layover sure gives me time to reflect over what I’ve experienced!
I sort of jumped into this project mid-way, as Astri, the cellist performing in Bodø, was unable to attend the second part of Outpost II in Reykjavik. It was hard to imagine what to expect - but I was not disappointed! This project has given me inspiration and encouragement in a lot of ways.
As an aspiring musician and composer it has been nice to meet like-minded people with a lot of experience from the field. Both Eygló, Ásbjörg and Birgit are strong and dedicated performers from different genres, who all have studied composition. It was interesting to see how different their compositions became, even with the same base material: Paintings and drawings organized into sheet music we were able to perform. This made the end result, the concert exhibition, into being varied and exciting, if I may say so myself!
The other part of the project, the workshop we held at Myndlistaskóli Mosfellsbæjar was also an interesting experience. The engaged teacher Ásdís encouraged them to listen to the music, then paint whatever they felt like. She repeated several times: “How nice isn’t it when you are happy with what you have made?” I sure hope the kids shared that feeling, they had every reason to! Their paintings had a lot of soul, and their description of what they heard and then recreated in visual art was very fascinating.
The project finished with a concert exhibition in the Nordic House, which was the perfect location for this inter-nordic project. It was especially nice to see the Norwegian Ambassador, Aud Lise Norheim, in the audience!
This has altogether been an interesting and inspiring trip. Hopefully I will visit both Iceland and the Outpost project in the future! Thank you to Outpost and especially Birgit for having me.
Anne Handeland