about

At Otherness Project, we embark on a transformative journey that transcends borders and disciplines, seamlessly blending art, science, and society.

Our mission is to design sub-projects to deliver high-quality performances, workshops, and research initiatives that not only captivate audiences but also serve as catalysts for education, individual growth, and social healing.

We are dedicated to pushing boundaries, challenging norms, and creating experiences that resonate with the complexity of our interconnected world. We believe in the transformative power of art to bridge gaps, foster understanding, and ignite the spark of curiosity that fuels both individual growth and societal progress.

We cooperate in various artistic and research environments internationally. Our partners reside in Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Slovenia, Hungary, Romania, the UK, Montenegro, and the spectrum is getting larger every year.

Join us on this global exploration where art becomes a powerful force for change, education becomes a journey of discovery, and society is enriched through the diverse narratives we weave together.

CONTACT: othernessproject@gmail.com

OR:

Go back

Your message has been sent

OUR STORY:

Otherness Project was initiated as a third sector organisation in Helsingør, Denmark, in 2014, with a core group of artists and researchers residing in Eastern European and Nordic countries.

In Denmark, between 2014 and 2019, Otherness Project:

participated in 11 EU projects,
developed and disseminated among 8 partners organisations the social research-based Sideways Storytelling method,
developed 4 participatory performances with/for/by local audiences, using relational art, dialogical art, performing arts, installation art, gamification, art-and-science methods,
raised 2 million EUR for its sub-projects,
delegated 15 young professionals to participate pan-European exchange and training programmes,
was endorsed by the Danish Ministry of Culture for its excellence in socially engaged arts projects.

In the UK, between 2019 and 2023, Otherness Project continued its work as a grassroots organisation with global team members from the UK, Scotland, China, Italy, the US, Hungary, Romania, the Check Republic, and Colombia.

initiated a global object-storytelling project during the pandemic,
created a trilingual hybrid performance tackling both gender equity and the role of AI in human life,
was endorsed by the National Centre for Writing and the International PEN,
created a platform for intersectional voices,
has become a member of the prestigious publib directory: https://www.publib.co.uk/othernessproject.

An example of one of our gamified action-research performances is ‘IF’, which took part in several international artistic and research events and platforms, its methodology was published by De Gruyere and was represented in the volume Global Perspectives on Youth Art Programs, by Bristol University Press.

Our installation-performance, IF, developed with the action research methodology, invited to several festivals across Europe: Bådteatret, CPH / Actor Training in a Globalised World, CPH /Altofest, Naples (IT) / International Time Perspective Conference, Nantes (FR) / Passage Festival, Helsingor-Helsingborg (DK-SE) / Bridges Festival, Cluj-Napoca (RO) / Rahvusvahekine A-Festival (ET).

TEAM in DENMARK (2014-2019)

artistic director: Rita Sebestyen (RO/HU/DK/UK)

performer: Minni Katina Mertens (NO/DK)

performer: Sara Vilardo (IT/BE/DK)

light- and sound designer: Ivan Wahren (SE)

EU-project manager: Stine Ebbesen (DK)

dramaturge: Mira Nadina Mertens (NO/DK)

social media editor: Nora Ugron (RO/FI)

members and partners

Jugend- & Kulturpoject e.V. (Germany)

AddArt NGO, Thessaloniki (Greece)

Creativity Platform & YET (Greece)

CESIE (Italy)

Stowarzyszenie Moje Marzenia Spełniają Się MMS (Poland)

Stichting Caracola (the Netherlands)

Biznosova (Serbia)

Kulturno Izobraževalno Društvo Pina (Slovenia)

GoEurope (Spain)

Memorare Pacem e.V. (Germany)

Glaser Jakab Foundation (Hungary)

Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council, Oldham (the UK)

Civil Centre for Sustainable Development – EGRI (Macedonia)

Institute for Regional Development, o.p.s., Prague (the Czech Republic)

FOUNDING MEMBERS in 2014/15:

Sisso ARTNER (HU): journalist, author, editor, critic of theatre, dance theatre and pop music. She is member of Lábán Jury, also teaching journalism and communication at (PTE), Pécs University, at ZEN project.

BATARITA (HU): choreographer, dancer, director, teacher, director of the KINJIKI International Performing Arts Festival in Budapest. Since 2000 she has her own dance company, she has worked in Singapore, Romania, Slovakia, Poland, Bulgaria, Serbia, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Austria, Germany, Ecuador and Thailand.

Åse Eliason BJURSTRÖM (SE): drama teacher and lecturer in education at the Göteborg University. For the last twenty years she has worked with drama in intercultural network settings, mainly in East Africa and Sweden, and she has co-authored a number of articles and book chapters in this subject.

Adam CZIRAK PhD (GE): wrote his dissertation on participative practices of looking in intersubjective based art. Currently he is assistant professor at the Department for Performance Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin. His research focuses on aesthetics of contemporary theatre, visual culture, psychoanalysis, and performance art in the Eastern European Neoavantgarde.

Melanie DREYER (US): director, actor, translator, teacher and producer. She specializes in multilingual theater projects and has directed over fifty productions nationally and internationally. More about her work may be found at http://www.melaniedreyer.com.

Réka DUNKLER (RO): dramaturg, librarian, teacher, cultural organizer and web editor. She has worked as a dramaturge at several award winning theatre productions and was co-organizer and co-worker of international theatre festivals in Romania.

Kinga KELEMEN (RO): cultural manager working with several NGOs in Cluj. She is founder and director of GroundFloor Group, a contemporary dance association, producer of dance and theatre performances and exchanges, and an International Contact Improvisation Festival.

Márta MINIER (UK): Lecturer in Drama at the University of South Wales. Her main research interests include European drama with a special emphasis on Central and Eastern Europe; translation studies; adaptation studies; dramaturgy; stage and screen biography; Shakespeare studies.

Lilla PROICS (HU): has been writing reviews, essays, interviews, tvmonitoring material for more than fifteen years, and she works for the independent Tilos Rádió.

Sándor SAJÓ PhD (HU): philosopher and in some sense a poet and a writer too. Currently, he is assistant professor at Eötvös Loránd University Budapest (his Habilitation is in progress). He feels close to various philosophers like Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze. For different reasons, to be sure.

INSTITUTIONAL PARTNERS

The Centre for Studies in Otherness (DK) is a collaborative project between scholars primarily from the University of Aarhus, Denmark and Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, Ireland. The Centre works to initiate vigorous and productive interventions into nominal areas of otherness as a site for critical, socio-political, cultural, and literary exploration.

Diasporic Genius (CA) is grounded in the creative process and the development of creative capacity and agency, in individuals and communities. It brings the impact strategies of artists (and scientists, business leaders, teachers and innovators in every sector): http://diasporicgenius.com/

European Theatre Collective (FI) is bringing artists from many diverse cultural backgrounds together to create new and exciting artistic work, strengthening both the Finnish artistic community and the international artistic community with every collaboration.

The Theatre Studies Department at the University of Malta (MT) specializes in a number of different aspects of theatre scholarship, including physical theatre, musicality in theatre, the Russian twentieth century, Baroque and postcolonial theatre. Further information about the department can be found at http://www.um.edu.mt/performingarts/theatre.