“If you want to do something nice for a child, give them an environment where they can touch things as much as they want”
Buckminister Fuller, 1972
Nature & Play
Remember that spark of excitement from childhood. The sense of curiosity and discovery and aliveness with little things?
Remember how playing meant touching and testing and turning something round and round in your hand before you would just stuff it in you pocket?
When was the last time you learned something new, enjoyed something unexpected, did something fun, got your hands dirty, experiencing something unusual?
Can’t remember? Then you should contact me.
Nature, the Arts Within workshops are an opportunity to develop the sensory palette of children and adults who are more and more committed to new technologies and the latest tablettes and game consoles but find that reconnecting in concrete, tactile ways to Nature, is more than a passing need.
- gain insight through sensory enrichment
- improve mental fitness
- enhance mood or self concept
- manage stress or anxiety
- improve attentional flexibility
The workshops associate creativity with observation; play and culture; learning with fun; discovery and fascination; attention and being awake and attuned.
Our approach follows recent research suggesting that the efforts of learning the skills of mindfulness or managing distracting obstacles to self-presence are facilitated in pleasant nature environments which help replenish attentional resources.
Intuitive, playful, colour rich and texture rich:
In our workshops we will
- plant
- assemble
- touch soil, flowers, leaves, twigs, plant fibres
- craft decorative objects, masks, weavings
- create ephemeral art, mandalas or spirited offerings.
Sensory experiences provide open opportunities for thinking creatively and problem solving. By investigating materials, experiencing properties with our senses, we sharpen skills of observation and prediction, sorting and classifying, cause and effect, comparing, counting, matching. Manipulation of materials allows for fine motor skill exercise and eye hand coordination while we mix and pour and scoop, explore surfaces, lift, or roll.
This is an opportunity to play, to experiment with treasures gathered from Nature, fostering the profound, elementary need for manual activity, for touching with our hands as well as with our eyes and for engaging with living organisms.
All relationships must begin somewhere — they often begin playfully.
So contact me.
This is not about getting a dose of vitamin N. This is not about necessary minimal exposure for good health. Or recommended daily allowances.This is not about exploiting or using Natures bounty like a feel good pill. This is not another quick fix, a barbiturate, an anti anxiety detox cocktail.
This is about a Nature that is always “right here”, within reach, within us. It’s about rebuilding a bond with ourselves through the prism of our non-selves.
Listening more often to things, as the old indigenous wisdom seekers claim, we will discover our ancestors, that’s to say parts of ourselves.
Nature, the Arts within is a suggestion, or rather, an invitation for you to begin to foster a sensory and sensible alliance.
Nature the Arts Within 📞 +33 07 8331 4539 