Echolocation: a workshop on somatic research in Milan
Two days to explore body-based approaches to design research
As I began to give more space to somatics in my work as a teacher and designer, it became increasingly clear to me how it was above all a way of creating knowledge, and thus also of doing research. ‘Somatic research’ is a term I prefer to ‘somatic design’, because I believe that body-based knowledge is most relevant since the early stages of a project.
So it’s not surprising that in 2024 I found myself talking about this topic several times: in January I was invited as a keynote speaker at a conference at the Université de Strasbourg, while in July I gave a lecture for the students of the Corpo-Real Masters at ArtEZ University of the Arts. These two presentations were an opportunity for me to reorganize my thoughts on how a somatic approach can support and broaden design research, based on my work as a supervisor of design theses and on my visual research on somatic image making.
In 2024 I also started a collaboration with Kin & Shift, an artist-run space in Milan sharing a similar interest on somatic practices. This is how I came to the idea to offer a two-day workshop on somatic research for design.
The title I chose for this workshop is Ecolocalizzazione: inspired by Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ Undrowned. Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals, I thought that echolocation, the process by which cetaceans orient themselves in space, could become a good metaphor for the practices I would like to offer.
What do I mean by somatic research? It is about methods and practices devised to rediscover the value of body-based knowledge in a context increasingly ruled by exploitative logics (of resources, people, ideas). Somatic research is an approach that takes the person as its starting point, not in an individualistic sense but as a node in a network of relationships with the world.
Sometimes research can overwhelm us: we feel we have to ‘know everything’ before we can speak, or act. Instead, research should help us to understand what we do along the way and to situate it in a context where people, life forms, spaces, materials, ideas already exist. And, as Arjun Appadurai puts it, research should be seen as a human right because it gives us access to the knowledge we need to act in the world.
The starting point of the workshop will be a situational practice, to help us deeply understand ‘where we are’ in relation to our field of interest and practice. Body awareness and sensory activation practices will be offered, as well as reading sessions and embodied processing of textual, visual and sensory research materials.
The workshop is open-ended; it will be a time to focus on a research theme, to practice new forms of exploration to apply to our projects, to imagine new ways of rooting our practices, in a space of sharing and mutual listening arising from body awareness.
The workshop will be held on 1 and 2 March in Milan: if you think you might be interested, please write at es@es-se.it.