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Eleni’s walking proposition: Walk on Soft and Hard
What is on the ground and all Nature and human created environments can be seen and felt as something soft or something hard. Follow a path consisting of soft and hard surfaces, feel them,film,or describe them in your own way. See if the surfaces change with your presence. You can film also soft and hard things you find in your path.What is your own idea of soft and hard after your walking tour?
Phuong’s interpretations
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The birch bark has a fascinating surface. In the distance you see a white trunk with black stripes, but when you get closer you can clearly see the difference between the smoothness of the bark and the rough surface in the cracks.
I took a walk right outside where I live. On this road and with this proposition to go on soft and hard from Eleni, I got the urge to touch and feel the difference between the bark and the cracks.
I can see the differences with my eyes, and I can imagine the texture. But it is by touching these surfaces – walking with my fingertip that I can understand what they give me in contact with my skin; these surfaces made marks on my fingertip. I can feel resistance when I press, and I can decide how hard I want to do so.
I can find the idea soft and hard in life too. Like good days and bad days, and if I have not experienced both, then I do not understand and appreciate one thing or the other. I understood the materiality of pedagogy as an experience can be interpreted to something else in life, or it can be understood as a connection between two different things.
Phuong’s walking proposition: Water and Skin
Having a definition of border in mind (yours or something you have read) – how does water feel on the skin? Which emotions can this connection between nature and human create? Does the skin tell something before and after the connection? Does the human mood change the emotion of the connection? Feel free to choose which medium you want to give an aesthetic description of what emotions these connections create.
Eleni’s interpretations
As for the proposition for our students …
In this work with ecological awareness and sensory experience that we have tried out with these walking suggestions, we have some ideas on how we can use this method/this tool in the class. These ideas are for students 13-17 when we are going to teach about racism, prejudice and art. But we think it was extremely difficult to discuss them via chat/zoom, so we want to evaluate this when we meet in Metochi. We hope we have time for that.
Dear Eleni and Phuong. Thank you for two thoughtful and inspiring propositions exploring soft & hard and water & skin. The presentations, pictures and video are really nice. I still hear the sounds of water in my ears and see the city of Eleni in my eyes. Both propositions are interesting both because the explore our sensuous relations to the world (in particular through touch) and because of the possibilities that they might open for pedagogical thinking and the materiality of pedagogy. What kind of ‘learning selves’ do we become when exploring these slow, poetic forms of being? Is it ‘meaningless’ to use time on this in education? I look very much forward to discuss your ideas about how to work with students to teach about racism, prejudice and art. We will use some time during one of the first days to talk about the pedagogical potentialities of propositions. I look very much forward to that!
Dear Helene, thank you for your comment. Really appreciate your opinion. It was nice to work on these ideas and having in mind the borders you proposed. It is also wonderful when we work together from different spots of this planet and different backrounds. As for the teaching ideas, borders and the way you see them, made me think a lot of them that we take for granded around us and it will be very creative if we can recognise them with students before we start deconstructing them through art and fieldwork. Looking forward to meeting you all !