Being on the Beach. Exploring Sensomotoric Awareness in a Landscape

Our perception and awareness of the environment is vital to our understanding and dealing with nature. But the ability to perceive nature is not a given constant. This project suggests simple methods of training that may trigger sensomotoric awareness, opening for a deepened personal and shared experience of being. It is a collaborative work by a visual artist and a dancer/ choreographer who both have explored bodily awareness in relation to nature and natural elements for years. The visual artist has focused on sensitivity towards materiality and form, visually and tactilely, mostly through her eyes and hands, while the dancer has worked with the whole body in space in relation to natural objects. Last year, we explored body awareness and objects (stones) in a set, manmade space as a participatory performance in a conference in Reykjavik, Iceland. This year, we would like to proceed by inviting the conference participants into an exploration of sensomotoric awareness in a sea landscape. Current intentions for a Hiddensee workshop are systematically to explore basic parameters that our bodies relate to: gravity, grounding, perception of the landscape by all senses, body movements and eventual actions. The project comprises three phases: start, elaboration and a performative conclusion.Aesth/Ethics in Environmental Change. Transdisciplinary workshop about the aesthetics, ethics, art, religion and ecology of the environment. The European Forum for the Study of Religion and the Environment, Religious Studies, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Biological Station of Hiddensee, University of Greifswald, Environmental Ethics, University of Greifswald. Hiddensee, Tyskland, 24-28 May 2010