2022-2023 ~ Factory 2.0: CONSIDERING THE MATERIAL

This workshop focuses on the act of experiencing as a space to learn about ourselves, our environment, and others. During the workshop, we will try different ways of relating to materials to learn something new from the materials we are familiar with. And we will create and perform an action that will enable us to effectively examine the question we are asking. Writing exercises will further improve our practice of creating and analysing our own work. In this workshop, we will work independently but still be attached to one another.

Program: Gathering materials: 

Find materials that belong to the city of Arnhem. We can start looking for our materials from day one. As a suggestion, we can search for our material on the route between StayOkay and WALTERbooks.

Materials are:

rocks,

plants,

a cup of water

Looking at the material, asking questions (20 min):

Without touching the material again, write a list of all the questions that you have about each item. Do it one at a time, writing for 10 minutes on each material. *

*We can decide whether or not to share our questions with the group.

Examining the materials (15 min):

How does each material smell, taste, feel, or sound? Experiment with those sensations on other parts of your body than you might normally use to experience the material.

Writing (30 min):

Consider the life of the material. Where did it come from? How was it born or created? How does it move? Assume it has a consciousness. What makes it happy? What is painful for it? How does it get what it wants? What are its fears? What will be its death? How did it feel as you examined it? Some materials have a life that is longer than ours, some have a life that is shorter. *

*We can decide whether or not to share our writing with the group.

Break for thinking about an action (15 min):

Action with material (40 min):

Do one action with the material in order to find the answer to one of your questions. So it doesn't matter if we understand what people are doing or not. This is an experiment to learn something we don't know about each material. We won’t demonstrate something for the audience, we won’t show something that we already know. Think about the difference between when you truly respond to the material and when you abuse the material.