Sensory Forest Walk with Roberley Bell

Friday, July 18th, 10 am – 2 pm
(or when we return)

This workshop introduces walking as a form of sensory observation, enabling participants to fully experience their environment. Sight is the dominant sense we are trained to use when perceiving the world around us. But what happens when we attentively employ all of our senses? How does our spatial awareness change?

The workshop provides participants with resources to draw upon their sensory experiences and fully “see” where they are. How is it that we choose to navigate space? Can smell or sound direct us? What perceptual qualities control the decisions made? These are some of the questions participants consider in the process of shaping their walk, step by step.

Using the script provided, participants set off. The script contains a specific prompt to slow the participants down and heighten their imagination.

Participants will be given a script for their walk and two cards. One card for sensing the walk, providing space to note sight, taste, hearing, touch, and smell. The second card provided space for drawing the prompt.

Returning to the building, we will share our sensory experiences and recollections and together draw a path.  Each participant will be asked to write a story for a tree, which will be shared with the public during the festival.

Bio

Bell’s practice draws on the world around her, inspired by place and time. Through drawing, photography, performative walking, and object making, Bell explores the relationship between nature and the built environment in search of abstraction. Bell is the recipient of numerous fellowships, including a Fulbright to Turkey. Do You Know This Tree? Published by Visual Studies Press, documents a walk in Istanbul spanning five years. Bell has had numerous residencies, including the Cité Internationale in Paris, Stadt Künstlerhaus in Salzburg, Austria, The International Studio Program in NYC, and Sculpture Space in Utica, NY, among others. Most recently, she was a research fellow at the Urban Institute, Malmö, Sweden. Bell’s work has been exhibited and reviewed internationally. She has completed public projects in Istanbul, Turkey, Kaliningrad, Russia, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cambridge, among others. Bell creates personal walking projects and leads walking workshops internationally. Bell lives in Western Massachusetts, maintaining a studio in the historic canal city of Holyoke, MA.

Materials provided by Monson:

• 4×6 index cards
• Pencils
• Colored pencils
• Roll of craft paper

What to Bring:

• Comfortable walking shoes and weather-appropriate clothing.
• Water bottle and snacks.
• Notebook and pen for taking notes

Meeting Point:

• Tenney House, 47 Tenney Hill Rd

Price:

• $20