Fordelen ved at være ordblind

Advantages of being dyslexic

2024 // A 8 channel sound installation // 21:00 min loop
exhibited at Kunsthal Charlottenbrog during ‘exit’ 2024

‘The Advantages of Being Dyslexic’ is a 21-minute immersive multi-channel sound installation exhibited at Kunsthal Charlottenborg curated by Post Brothers during Afgang 2024.

This installation takes place in a 5x5 meter green fabric room and is based on powerful and insightful stories collected from workshops and an open call in 2023, involving over 80 children, teens, and adults with dyslexia.

Over 400,000 people live with dyslexia in Denmark. The installation aims to imagine a society that focuses on abilities, encouraging us to believe in and embrace our neurodiversity.

The central question posed during the workshops was: "Hvad er fordelene ved at være ordblind?" ("What are the advantages of being dyslexic?").

For many participants, ranging from 3rd graders to 70-year-olds, it was the first time they were asked to consider the benefits of dyslexia, and how their ability to translate sound into letters and vice versa could be regarded as a superpower rather than a 'dysfunction'.

The sound installation is a composite of recordings from these workshops, intertwined with narration based on the participants' stories, and concludes with a community song.

By sharing these diverse experiences and reflections, the installation amplifies the wide spectrum of ways people live with and cope with dyslexia.

Dyslexic experiences tell us something profound about difference, experience, and neurodiversity. It challenge our perceptions of the relationship between spoken and written words and how we navigate systems built around concepts of 'normality'.

Living with dyslexia compels individuals to creatively interpret their environment, leading to the development of multi-dimensional tools and strategies.

Nymann has adopted green as a symbol of dyslexia awareness, using it in her installation and campaign due to its calming yet hyper-visible hue.

By reinterpreting a pathologized 'disorder' into a source of ingenuity, the sound piece celebrates dyslexia and aims to engage with society’s understanding of it, challenging our predispositions about what a dyslexic experience is. 

The sound work stands as a tribute to dyslexia.

artist
Julie Nymann

sound designer
Joëlle McGovern Serret


»samlet union«
composer & producer
Agnes Valbjørn Stavnsbjerg

narrator 
Jonas Kjeldgaard Sørensen
Mette Moltke Wozniak
Julie Nymann

voices
Limfjordskolen Struer, Ordblindeklubben Nørre Nissum, FGU Vesterbro, Anette Marcher, Kim Lykkegaard and Marie Vedsmand

writer
Julie Nymann

script editor
Agnes Valbjørn Stavnsbjerg

dramaturgi
Julie Nymann
Joëlle McGovern Serret

technical coordination
Kristine Bech Sørensen

technical assistance
Nikolaj N. Phillipsen
Keith Allan
Tilda Lundbohm

the sound installation is genrueset supported by
Politiken-Fonden and Overretssagfører L. Zeuthens Mindelegat

special thanks to all of you for sharing your stories
All teachers and dyslexics who were part of ‘Fordelene ved at være ordblind’-workshops at Københavns VUC, FGU Vesterbro, Limfjordskolen Struer, Ordblindeklubben at Nørre Nissum skole, dyslexics students in higher education who receive SPS, and dyslexics in a public open call 

thank you
Sound Art Lab, Ordblindeinstituttet, SPS counselor at Københavns VUC, Struer municipality and library 

furthermore, thank you
Andrea Diermayr, Helle Harnisch, Ida Vestergaard Øyan, Jane Hye Jin Kaisen, Kristel Laurits, Kristine Bech Sørensen, Lars Bo Henriksen, Lars Buchholtz, Louise Rytter, Maibritt Borgen, Oskar Koliander, Pi Bartholdy, Rune Søchting, Silas Emmery, Troels Dankert, and Vibeke Rasmussen

Forslag til lovændring

Ordblinde med stolthed

Proposal for legislative change: Dyslexia with Pride

2024 // print on paper

Next to the soundinstallation ‘Fordelene ved at være ordblind’ is exibitet ‘Forslag til lovændring: Ordblinde med stolthed’ (‘Proposal for legislative change: Dyslexia with Pride‘), an artistic manifesto written as a Danish legislative proposal. 

Link to online artistic manifesto ︎︎︎︎

Using the public forum of Kunsthal Charlottenbrog, Nymann’s project puts forward a manifest of several new bills and a law proposal for regulatory changes of how to frame dyslexia within the danish educational system, with the ambition that people living with dyslexia can be confident and proud to be considered a celebrated part of society. ︎︎︎︎



PRESS 

Berlingske Julie Nymann er stolt af at være ordblind – det har sine fordele: Nu har hun seks konkrete forslag til undervisningsministeren

CREDITS

artist
Julie Nymann

text editor
Helle Harnisch
Ida Vestergaard Øyan

graphic designer
Kasper Aavad

translator
Ami Frost

thank you
Andrea Diermayr, Lars Bo Henriksen, Louise Rytter, Silas Emmery, Vibeke Rasmussen and all the teachers I had the pleasure of engaging with.

The House That Whispers

2021 // A three channel video installation // 15:30 min loop

A multichannel soundscape about the reverberations of the colonization of the Danish West Indies, today the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The film stages interactions between the past, present and what seem to be echoes of history, manifested in law, architecture, and people.

The video installation was filmed in three locations around Copenhagen.

The West Indies Warehouse

The West Indies Warehouse, located on the waterfront in Copenhagen, was built by the Danish West India Company, a chartered company responsible for the Triangular trade.

This film started as a sound recording, made in 2019, of the West Indies Warehouse building singing. The phenomenon of the building singing happens in special weather conditions where wind enters the building, causing it to resonate and become its own instrument playing in several flute-like tonalities. The field recording was made in The Royal Cast Collection which the warehouse houses today. 

The Odd Fellow Palace

The Odd Fellow Palace was bought in 1762 by Heinrich von Schimmelmann and at the time got the name Schimmelmann Mansion. In the 18th century, the Schimmelmann family had become Denmark’s richest family due to sugar imports from the Danish West Indies.

Sitting by a piano at The Odd Fellow Palace, pianist Ben Besiakov improvises in direct response to the recording of the sound sung by the West India Warehouse building. Ben Besiakov’s grandfather was Victor Cornelin. Victor Cornelin was brought from the Danish West Indies to Copenhagen to be exhibited at the 1905 human exhibition in Tivoli.

The Royal Vajsenhus

In 1905 The Royal Vajsenhus was an orphanage and after the human exhibition in Tivoli Victor Cornelin was sent to school in this very building. Today The Royal Vajsenhus is a primary school.

In the film a girl reads aloud from a contemporary school book for high school history classes. From the book, she reads a selection of texts. One of which is the 1733 slave regulations of Philip Gardelin that were put in force throughout the Danish West Indies, while another is the story of Victor Cornelin. 

The three channels mixed into one TRAILER 

artist
Julie Nymann

pianist
Ben Besiakov

girl
Luka Ildrup

photographer
Jonas Fogh

assistant
Ellinor Juhler

editor
Anna Wistreich
Julie Nymann

sound designer
Jonathan Hvalsøe Schou

colorist
Eliott Becheau

thank you
The Royal Cast Collection, The Odd Fellow Palace, The Royal Vajsenhus

thank you
Henrik Holm, Jakob Kolding, Luca Frei, Stephen William McEvoy, Katrine Dirckinck-Holmfeld, Kasper Wolf Stouenborg, Kristine Bech, Nikolaj Nielsen Phillipsen, Mathias Bruun, Anne Mette Finderup, Naja Berg Hougaard

Use It Well

By Julie Nymann & Signe Raunkjær Holm

2022 // 16-channel sound installation // 30 min loop + 5 min exit track

Use It Well’ is a 16 speakers installation distributed throughout a room where the audience is invited to walk among the speakers.

A group of people reacted to a casting call titled “experiment about dance and loneliness” during lockdown 2021. They were invited to the fictional ‘Red Room Institute’ that hosted something between a dance audition, a self-help radio show, and a performance for a one-person audience. This turned into ‘Use It Well’, where the spectator is surrounded by a massive soundscape of bodies.

The soundscape oscillates between inner comments and attempts of reaching out, verbal and nonverbal communication, loneliness and togetherness.

By leaving the visual space empty for the audience to fill in the blanks, ‘Use It Well’ wants to reconfigure ideas of presence and absence, intimacy and distance, and how we construct meaning when something is withheld from us. What happens to the representation of the bodies when the visual codes are removed?

To enter the installation the spectator must put on a pair of pink socks on.

The spectator exits through a corridor with hidden speakers, listening to the directing voices of the live performance.

CREDITS

artists
Julie Nymann &
Signe Raunkjær Holm

composition ‘Give Us Your Echo’
Lennart Dybdahl

vocals ‘Give Us Your Echo’ 
Signe Raunkjær Holm

sound design
Eliza Bożek

thanks
the performers

thanks
Luca Frei, Jonas Jönsson, Ellinor Juhler, Stephen McEvoy, Alessandro Perini, Jenny Gräf Sheppard, Christian Skovbjerg Jensen, Ragna Solbergnes

with support from
Koda Kultur
Dansk Komponistforening
Inter Arts Center

Lungs of salt

2021 // A two channel video installation // 27:00 min loop

In a dance where the human compass is uncalibrated and every sense of direction has disappeared, we plunge ever deeper, exploring the unknown ocean’s underworld of fantasies, and mythical projections of human desires into layered waters.

In ‘Lungs of salt’, it feels as if synthetic utopia is a natural part of the ocean waters. Neon jellyfish and fabrics like chiffon, organza and silk react to the current of the ocean, merging man-made hybrids with an ecology of sparkling desires. The fabric moves between awareness of a man-made material produced by an industrial machine, and a souled sea serpent that reigns over the ocean.

Installation view of ‘Lungs of salt’ at M/S Maritime Museum, 2021

The round shape of the installation at M/S Maritime Museum, makes it feel as if the film is one breathing organ, enhanced by the meditative soundscape, where the passage of time slips into a distorted eye.

The textiles and garment industry is one of the largest users of water globally, with tons of water being used to produce a kilogram of fibre inorder to become fabric. The materials used in this film are directly linked to the desire of luxurious materials, returned to the waters the industry exploits.

This conflict frames the core of the underworld, where we dive ever deeper into the uninhabitable human place, the sea, that bridges to a new habitat that seems easy to ingest.

The spectator floats through the ocean, not realizing it is the danish sea they are experiencing, and that every time the film cuts, a new breath is taken. Clad in hunting wetsuits, the crew lie in the ocean recording ‘Lungs of salt’, simultaneously connected to the fabrication industry that produces the wetsuit material. ‘Lung of salt’ streams into an industrial utopia that is ever connected to water and it’s technology.

CREDITS

artist
Julie Nymann

dancers
Mia Heide
Karoline Christensen

photographer
Jonas Fogh

music
SØS Gunver Ryberg

scenographer
Mette Moltke Wozniak

edit
Julie Nymann

colorgrader
Eliott Becheau

Made possible by
M/S Maritime Museum

thank you
Marie Ørstedholm
Maria Mackinney-Valentin
Signe Raunkjær Holm
Ellinor Juhler
Nina  Balstrup
Sofie Burgaard
Tilda Lundbohm

thank you
STOF & STIL
SILVAN
Dana Lim A/S