Description
Through three integrated parts, Blundell and Leduc will explore ecological dynamics in unique embodied and enacted ways. Participants are invited into a Dartington woodland to participate in their individual somatic exercises. Blundell’s practice will focus on the phenomenological contrasts of quantitative and qualitative experience and Leduc’s will explore the power of multi-sensorial co-creativity as art practice. These exercises serve as the basis for an inclusive woodland conversation on the qualities of sharing, broadly defined. We will explore how the subtle phenomenologies of sharing can activate a profound new sense of continuity called enactivism.
We seek to facilitate experiences of sharing that provide access to both embodied and enacted forms of distributed consciousness. We posit that sharing activates and provides powerful access to the experience of enactivism and an extended form of embodiment. We anticipate experiences of sensorial and identity dissolution, expanded reciprocity, radical affection and gratitude. The workshop will conclude with a reflection on how a choice to live our lives sharing in the world can contribute to a necessary shift in human consciousness.
About the artists
Dr. Rich Blundell is an ecologist working at the confluence of art, science, nature and culture. His research examines how transformation happens across the scales of person, place and planet. As a cultural communicator and founder of Oika Research, Blundell tells a scientific story of the universe that includes art and human creativity as natural phenomena. Blundell’s research and work has received numerous grants and awards including, The National Science Foundation grant for Science Out There, the Michael Brinkman Award, The Deep Time Values video award for An Earth Story, The Macquarie University Innovation in Scholarship award for The Cosmosis1 Explorer app, The Oculus Innovators Award for In the Light of the Forest VR, and nomination for the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival Best New Media for Saving Grey’s Zebra. Blundell’s creative video work has appeared on PBS and National Geographic and his art has hung in numerous galleries.
Rita Leduc is an interdisciplinary artist based in New York’s Hudson Valley region. Her work in chosen outdoor locations chronicles an intimate transition from temporal experience to abiding relationship with the living world. Leduc’s work has been shown throughout the greater New York City area and beyond, including recent exhibitions at Mount Saint Mary College (NY), Mohonk Arts (NY), and Terrain Biennial (NY). She has attended several residencies and has received support from NYFA, the Jerome Foundation, Atlas Obscura, Oika, Broto Art-Climate- Science, Wells College, and Rutgers University, among others. Leduc received her MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, Post-Baccalaureate Certificate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and BA from the University of Pennsylvania. She currently teaches at William Paterson University, Ramapo College, and Rutgers University and is creator and director of GROUNDWORK, an interdisciplinary creative research platform.
http://www.oika.com
https://www.ritaleduc.com/site-hubbard-brook-experimental-forest