Project: Exploring Senses

[senselab]

We had our final client meeting yesterday to present our project output: a deck of cards for training the senses and a trainer guidebook wherein the training activities are linked to literature. 

It has been such a pleasure working on this project with Marres. Looking back from where we were initially, we are happy to have produced an output that reflects each of our own experiences through our senses.  Immersing through them and training them makes us appreciate more the process of the way we do our work. 

While the project has ended and many of us will be moving to new places soon, each of us is inspired to be more aware of ourselves and thus, be able to be more aware of our environments and how we do things. We hope to be able to share this experience with other people and see what new things they are able to discover just by simply paying more attention to their senses. 

[senselab]

23.05.2022

Slightly hyperactive meeting today. 

We had a lot to celebrate. 

1. We’re with DONE our product. DONE. We can’t believe it. Tomorrow, we’ll be presenting it to Marres, and sharing it with you. We feel very proud of what we were able to accomplish together. 

2. It’s Caroline’s BIRTHDAY today!!!!!! We sang her happy birthday on Zoom. It sounded really good, as we’re sure you can imagine. 

3. Mahrukh blessed us with that cat background. 

[senselab]

04.05.2022

~SenseLab Meeting reel~

Mahrukh delivers immaculate vibes with this short reel of one of our team meetings. Those twirly chairs at Tapijn just get us going. 

Also, did you spot the banana? This is actual experimental work IN ACTION, all for the benefit of our final product. 

Are you intrigued?

#producingphase

[senselab]

17.05.2022

We give you: “Operation Mango” - a workshop part of Marres’ ‘Training the Senses’ series.

Like surgeons, we learned how to perform excisions and biopsy punches... but on fruit. 

Not your typical Tuesday evening. 

[senselab]

10.05.2022

We love our client meetings at Marres. They always make us feel so inspired. 

Here, we give you a little ‘behind the scenes’ action shots.

Not at all posed... :-)

[senselab]

When we started working with Marres, they asked us to keep a personal sensory diary. It could take any shape or form. We all went about it in a different way: whether through painting, drawing, writing, audio recordings or pictures.

The first iteration of the sensory diary helped us gain awareness of our senses, and of the world around us. 

Since then, we’ve been noticing more and more. Sounds, smells, sights,, tastes and sensations we normally wouldn’t have paid attention to are coming into focus. Chloé kept a video-diary of her newfound sensory observations, over the span of two months. 

Here’s the result. 

Beyond sight, which of your other senses are activated as you watch it? 

~sound on~

[senselab]

17.05.2022

We just had a meeting with our mentor Ike Kamphof, who is a professor in Philosophy at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. 

We did a thorough review of the final product we will be presenting to our client on Friday. Stay tuned for the result!!

The meeting required tons of concentration and deep thought, but we worked well as a team and fed off of each others’ creativity. 

We were grateful to step back out into the world afterwards, and appreciate the warm sun, the soft breeze and the smell of flowers. 

[senselab]

Ameena and Caroline touch on how we connect with the world around us to gain knowledge and to help us approach problems from a different perspective. 

[senselab]

Our team members from the Faculty of Health, Medicine & Life Sciences, Annemieke and Mahrukh share their perspectives on learning through their experiences and their interactions with their surroundings.

[senselab]

We are SenseLab, an interdisciplinary team with a background in medicine, psychology, arts, and business. 

Through this project with Marres House of Contemporary Culture, we not only found something new for the client but also something new for ourselves as we explore different ways of learning by engaging our senses. 

Chloé and Lea share their takeaways throughout this project.   

[senselab]

30.04.2022

Talk about team work. 

For this Focusing Phase meeting, we had a special guest: Mrs. Peach. She helped our redefine, simplify and rephrase our Training Cards. We tried out some of the activities we had invented for our workshop, and thought long and hard on how to make them better. 

The meeting took place at the Tapijnkazerne, on a beautiful sunny day. 

It was both fun and productive. 

[senselab]

22.04.2022 

POP-UP EVENTS! 

Chloé participated in the Mind in Motion Mindful Walk, lead by Myriam Demas. The event took place on St. Pietersberg and was a combination of walking, mindfulness exercises and yoga. It was a ~perfect~ opportunity to keep exploring the senses and smell, touch, hear(?) and lie down in a bed of flowers!

Caroline & Mahrukh got their creative juices flowing in the Vision Creation workshop, which took place at the Bonnefanten Museum. They were inspired to use their creativity to better define the direction of their future careers. 

We are thankful to PREMIUM for having organized these events, that so nicely fit with our project. 

[Photos of the Mindful Walk: from PREMIUM]

[senselab]

13.04.2022

When the cherry blossoms were in full bloom, we had a second client meeting for our focusing phase. 

We presented a pitch for our final product, which we decided would be a Training, specially designed for students, to become aware of, learn from and train the senses. 

We organized our literature search and workshop activity brainstorm into themes and stages. 

Marres was very happy! Our next mission was to take what we had, and narrow it down. 

#spring #focusingphase #clientmeeting

[senselab]

29.03.2022

This client meeting happened half-way through our Focusing Phase. 

We were prompted to find poetry in our own lives, and attachment to the world around us. 

We talked the commonalities and differences of nature vs. technology, and explored the terms awareness, mindfulness and attention. 

We also got some good inspo from Keri Smith’s How To Be An Explorer of The World. :-)

#focusingphase 

[senselab]

Hey fellow-PREMIUM participants! We’re back! 

We’ve been hard at work, and want to share our progress over the last two phases of our project. 

Last time we checked-in, we were just begining our focusing phase, with a big and colourful brainstorm. 

Now, with less than 20 days to go until the end of PREMIUM (time flies), we’re deep into the producing phase! 

Here’s an overview of the major components of each phase. 

[senselab]

The evolution of a brainstorm ! We went back to basics with the ~real~ post-its. 

The juices were flowing in today’s session. We are transitioning from our exploration phase to our focusing phase, and this was our first step. 

Excited to present our ideas to our client this Tuesday. 

We hope everyone has been enjoying the sun. 

PS: can you spot today’s special guest? 

[senselab]

Here’s a video diary of the Images from the Unconscious experience at Marres. 

~sound on for good vibes~

Hope you enjoy it!