Politics of Perceiving
This workshop explores how perception and touch shape the deep and layered relationship between bodies potato and soil. We’ll use the sensitive body as our main way to feel, mulch, peel, press, and (un)do. Joining in an act of collective care – we host a nurturing environment. Not for us, but for soil organic mattering. Today, it’s soil, that is our guest. The workshop unfolds in three parts: perceiving, relating, and storytelling.
We begin by attuning to the sensuous and responsive body through simple guided exercises rooted in the principles of Haptonomy—an approach that emphasizes touch and emotional connection.
From there, we extend our attention outward, working together with potatoes, and other living matter. We pay attention to texture, temperature, and weight. Each movement of peeling, rubbing and holding a gesture of presence and resistance. We’ll compost as a form of soft protest. Slowly we will start to map complex interactions.
We’ll end our work around the conversation pit where we bring together memories, recipes and frustrations. We tell stories and the stories ferment. They soak into the shared vessel of our labour. What we will collectively leave behind is not a product, but a process. A vessel of gestures as an offering. A living residue highlighting interdependence and need for refusal and ecological care.
This is not a workshop to make something, it’s a moment to undo, together.
Rosalie Bak is an artist and haptonomist that works at the intersection of affective research, embodiment, and spatial practices, with a strong focus on ecology, art, and somatic care.
Margherita Soldati is an artist whose work explores themes such as diagnosis, immunity, and the relationship between food and the senses, often in collaboration with scientists and communities.
Together, they explore how artistic, empirical, and embodied research can be combined to deepen the understanding and integration of knowledge about ecosystem health. They also investigate how this approach can help make research outcomes more accessible and relatable across different disciplines.
Reserve your spot on the Eventbrite-page of the event.
Participation is free, but donations are very welcome.
