It is a deprived area of Edinburgh whose resident’s lives, dreams, and sounds are 
not too often expressed in prominent music and art.

But now the lives and artistic observations of a group of people living in the Wester Hailes area of Edinburgh are at the centre of a new artwork featuring new music performed by members of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO).

Incredible Distance, an installation of music, found sound, and speech, with music composed by Suzanne Parry and performed by the national music institution, is the the fruit of a collaboration between citizens of the area, in the south west of the capital, and musicians from the orchestra.

The artwork, through music, words and images, tells a “day in the life” of the area, inspired by the ideas, work and recollections of a group of its residents.

The title, according to Kirsteen Davidson Kelly, creative learning director for the SCO, is “multi layered” in meaning, but as well as referring to the fruitful collaboration required of migrating birds which travel great distances, also refers to the distance that Wester Hailes is from the capital’s more celebrated historic city centre.

The artwork, encompassing sound and vision, traces 24 hours in the life of 
Wester Hailes, as told by a group of residents which has been working with the orchestra since last August.

It is now being shown at the Society of Scottish Artists 121st annual exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy until mid-January, and then at Whale Arts in Wester Hailes, before moving to the Fruitmarket Gallery in the centre of the capital for four days in February.

Ms Parry said that initially there was a degree of trepidation in the group about describing their lives to the artists, but it was a “really positive project in which we worked on an even playing field, they was no ‘us and them’ in this.”

She said: “There was some trepidation, because the group said that they often have to describe what they do every day on a week-in, week-out process, they have to 
tell people what they do, and it is a loaded question, it’s weighted, and is often linked to getting certain benefits. 

“They group said they didn’t want to be part of a ‘look at the poor people’ kind of project: but we said we never wanted to do that.
“But having that expressed back us, right at the beginning of the project, was really beneficial to the whole project. From then we saw the growth in the potential of the idea.”

Seven local residents, the majority aged over 50, responded to a poster put up by the SCO, and collaborated with the artists on the final product, a 12-minute film or “audio visual installation”.