For this episode, we bring you something a little bit different.

A few months ago, we were invited to work in collaboration with the podcast Refugee Voices Scotland, and make a guest series for a new podcast called The Sounds of Integration.

We decided to make a series on the theme of community. It’s a series celebrating the power of community, but also thinking about what happens when communities are put under strain. When people move from one place to another, moving away from the community they know and into a new one. When borders and visas separate us. When being within two metres of another person becomes dangerous. Can communities survive physical distance? How can we support each other when we can’t stand beside each other?

We’ve called the series ‘What does community mean to you?’, and it features lots of short interviews with interesting people. This is the first episode from the series, which we’re releasing on the Accentricity feed as a taster. If you’d like to hear the rest of the series, you can subscribe to the Sounds of Integration podcast using this link, or through your podcast streaming app of choice. The Sounds of Integration is made by the UNESCO Chair for Refugee Integration Through Language and the Arts at the University of Glasgow. You can find them on Twitter @UofGUnescoRILA.

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This episode is called We’re All Allowed To Be Who We Are. It features stories from five Glasgow residents. Below is some information about each of them, in order of appearance. The conversations in this episode took place in October and November 2020.

* Marzanna Antoniak is a culture animator, community development worker, and a language teacher with a special interest in working with people who have had little experience of formal education. Originally from Poland, she made Scotland her home in 2008. She is the cofounder of the Cosmopolis Creative Group, and has programmed cross-cultural festivals and events around Glasgow and beyond.

* Dio Anemogiannis is a cultural practitioner and the founder of NACUSSO, a collective exploring active citizenship, and community building through sound, storytelling and media-based practices. Find out more on Instagram (@nacusso_stories), and Facebook (@nacusso).

* Aga Paulina Mlynczak is an Artist/Curator who has delivered successful independent exhibitions in Copenhagen and Glasgow - most notably in Tramway - ‘RELAY’ (July’19). While holding a Curator/Director position at 16 Nicholson Street Gallery, she produces and specialises in media and installation art. She has a Masters degree in Fine Art (GSA), graduated from ‘Fatamorgana’ School for Art Photography and collaborated with Copenhagen Film Workshop. Her art practice is informed by research into participatory practices and language. Now, Mlynczak is developing an online iteration of her project which concerns democratisation of communication in multicultural environments - ‘Teach Me a Word You’re Afraid to Forget’. 

* Nell Cardozo is a Glasgow-based curator. She currently works in the curatorial collaborative of three that directs 16 Nicholson Street Gallery. Previous to, or alongside this role she has worked at the Scottish National Galleries as a Gallery Assistant and at the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow curating GROWTH: an exhibition of youth artists. Cardozo graduated with an English Literature MA and a Museum Studies MSc at Glasgow University, where her thesis focused on investigating accessibility in online databases. She has also led educational activities with family and lower-income audiences at schools and museums in Albany, NY.

* Shobhita Achraya is a university student studying physics and working with the Ensemble songwriting project. She is also involved with the Hidden Rhythms project, where her and her friends have fun together while making music and drama.

* The songs that can be heard in this episode are ‘We Are The Sun’ and ‘You Are Enough’ from the Hidden Rhythms EP, which is available on Soundcloud . Hidden Rhythms is a project run by YCSA, a group which supports young people in Glasgow Southside.

 * The languages you can hear in this episode are, in order of appearance, English, Polish, Malayalam, Farsi, Pashto, Shona and Greek.