Registration is open for an experimental workshop on ethics and embodiment in a forest, where I will engage in an exercise on the aesthetics and politics of education.
What role can embodiment play in ethical reflection? How might paying closer attention to bodily experience deepen ethical reflection, and open up space for other ways of knowing?
Please feel warmly invited to a workshop on July 14 that brings together two arts-based research approaches that invite participants to reflect on these questions through embodied exercises. This outdoor workshop takes place in a forest.
Filippo will start the day with an exercise on embodiment in education: What if we were to do our classes in a forest? How would that change the power dynamics in the “classroom”? (How) would this change the (Implicit) learning goals of our education? Which sensorial experience may this enhance or obstruct, and to what extent would this be desirable? He connects this question to his research on the politics of aesthetics in education.
After lunch, Julia Hermann and her colleagues, Corelia Bairbarac-Duignan and Anneke Sools, will take us on an in-depth exploration of how we may encourage justice towards more-than-human actors through embodiment. How might we truly do justice to the ‘perspective’ of non-human beings? Can we understand their experience, and does it help to embody them? To what extent can we even embody them at all?
The workshop is experiential and for those willing to step outside their comfort zones – be vulnerable, humble and with an open mind to transformative experience. It may be particularly interesting for researchers interested in aesthetics, embodiment, more-than-human approaches, artistic research, narrative approaches, and innovative approaches to education.
Held outside the university in the height of summer, this is also an informal gathering for shared reflection. If you’re around, feel warmly invited to join us for a unique opportunity to see each other in person and deepen our reflection through practice.
Program
10.30 Meet at Station Baarn and walk into the forest
10.45 What if we were to teach in a forest? (Filippo)
12.00 Lunch at forest café De Generaal in Baarn
13.30 Embodying non-human actors (Julia, Corelia & Anneke)
16.30 Final reflection and drinks at De Generaal
Participation costs
Participation is free. Lunch and drinks are provided by the ESDiT Art Reseach Line.
Want to join?
Please email Aafke (a.fraaije@tudelft.nl) by Monday, June 30. This gives us an idea of the number of participants. Please mention any dietary restrictions for lunch reservations.
We look forward to welcoming you to the Baarnse Bos on July 14!
Best,
Aafke (on behalf of the ESDiT Art Research Line)
About the organizers
This workshop is organized by the the ESDiT Art Research Line. This research line explores how the arts can expand human capacities to understand and respond to the disruptive effects of 21st-century sociotechnical developments. This includes stimulating moral sensibilities, imagination, creativity, and deliberation. Within this research line, researchers are particularly interested in the roles of narration and embodiment.
Workshop descriptions
Filippo: What if we had to do our classes in a forest?
What if we had to do our classes in a forest? How would that change the power dynamics in the “classroom”? (How) would this change the (Implicit) learning goals of our education? Which sensorial experience may this enhance or obstruct, and to what extent would this be desirable? This is connected to Filippo’s research on the politics of aesthetics in education.
Julia, Corelia & Anneke: Embodying more-than-human actors
Together with transdisciplinary researchers Anneke Sools and Corelia Baibarac-Duignan, Julia Hermann is involved in a project using embodied techniques to explore justice towards more-than-human beings. Participants will embody more-than-human actors, such as trees, animals, or technological artefacts, and explore the perspectives of those actors.
Filippo Santoni de Sio 
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