2021 has been another topsy turvy year and we hope this annual update finds people as safe, well and sane as the events of the last two years have allowed.
For Sensing Nature, a huge highlight of the year has been getting activities underway as part of our ‘ReStorying Landscapes for Social Inclusion’ project. The overall aim of the project is to inform interpretation, access and management decisions that respect the diverse ways in which landscapes are sensed, valued and experienced by individuals and groups over time.
Sensory Kayaking
One strand of the project has involved working with fantastic sensory inclusion specialist, Joanna Grace, and Access Lizard Adventure to develop a kayaking sensory story. These stories partner each sentence with a rich sensory experience. Our kayaking story can be experienced at home to gain a sense of what it might feel like to kayak. It can also provide a stepping-stone to kayaking, building points of sensory familiarity before taking to the water for the first time.
Our story also has an extra twist – the words form the verses of the lyrics of a sea shanty, composed by music therapist, Liz Eddy, and sung by The Include Choir. So, people may choose to sing it as a sea shanty or to simply use the shanty chorus as a way of signalling the beginning and end of the story. You can explore the story and associated resources online.
Wonderful Westonbirt
Our other two project strands have involved an exciting collaboration with Westonbirt Arboretum, based in Gloucestershire and widely celebrated for its ‘Picturesque’ landscape. When people think about the Picturesque at Westonbirt, they typically imagine rich autumn colour displays, magnificent redwood trees reaching up to the sky, and spectacular spring blooms. Yet our first project strand, ‘Westonbirt Unseen’ has been exploring this environment from a different perspective.
In collaboration with Westonbirt’s brilliant volunteer guide team and Andy Shipley of Natural Inclusion, we have been working with four new blind and partially sighted volunteers – Mark, Louise, Barbara and Mike – who have joined the team to train as sensory guides. Visitors have been immersed in new sensory journeys at the arboretum, following our guides to discover rich scents, sounds, textures and other sensations amidst Westonbirt’s unique treescape.
Reflecting on the role of the Picturesque in shaping the sensory delights of the arboretum, guide Louise notes:
“We talk about the Picturesque style, and how it’s a very visual concept, but actually the Picturesque also works incredibly well for what we're doing here. We can move from one tree, to the next, to the next, and they all have different shapes, sizes and textures. So, it's not just the visual impact, it's the range of phenomenal tactile experiences within a really, really small area, and it includes the whole atmosphere around the trees too!”
Delving further into the senses, sound artist James Bulley (of ‘Living Symphonies’), has joined the project and will be bringing Westonbirt’s rich sensory history to life in the Spring next year through a ‘Sensing History’ soundscape within the Arboretum.
This soundscape will complement a thought-provoking ‘Fragile with Attitude’ exhibition that is in development as part of the final strand of the project. Contemporary artist, Zoe Partington, and six fantastic Art Shape artists – including Naomi Said, Chloë of the Midnight Storytellers, Eleanor May (Cat in the Moon), Lisa Barnfield (The Green Lady), Julia Nigh (Duck & Dot), and mixed media abstract artist, Sarah Goddard – have been ‘re-storying’ Westonbirt’s landscape through their own experiences. Zoe explains:
“In an ableist world, disabled people are often overlooked or marginalised into certain categories that can be disempowering. Our exhibition, ‘Fragile with Attitude’, is about the stories and lives that are often misrepresented within our society. Westonbirt Arboretum provides a space for framing new perspectives of a ‘fragility’ in nature that impacts on us all”.
Unlocking Landscapes
Through this programme of activities, we are working to demonstrate new creative and collaborative approaches to visitor experience and social inclusion, highlighting how and why nature is for everyone. This is also a key focus of our other project, the ‘Unlocking Landscapes Network’.
While many of our Unlocking Landscape Network activities have been on pause with the pandemic, we did run an exciting online event in April this year, called ‘Whose landscape? Human diversity and historic landscape decision-making’. The event brought together interdisciplinary academics, artists and stakeholders from Historic England, Natural England, National Trust, Sense, Forestry England, Natural Resources Wales and the Willowherb Review, to reflect on key priorities, challenges and opportunities for embedding sensory, social and cultural inclusion into historic landscape decision-making. A summary of the key themes discussed in the workshop is available online.
Other exciting news
Through the year, we’ve had the opportunity to discuss Sensing Nature with a range of exciting organisations. For example, we were delighted to hear that Victa UK has recently drawn on insights from Sensing Nature to develop a resource with the Wildlife Trusts, called ‘Find the 4 using the 4’. This is a multisensory nature-based scavenger hunt launched for World Sight Day and Blindness Awareness month.
Our Inclusive Design guide, developed with the Sensory Trust, also informed a report produced by Groundwork UK, called ‘Out of Bounds: Equity in Access to Urban Nature’. The report was written in response to calls by the National Outdoors for All Working Group and brings together key evidence concerning inequity in access to urban nature, framed as a social justice issue.
We’ve heard about some great initiatives and activities throughout 2021, including Dave Horwood’s epic 83mile hike from Winchester to Bath in September. Another example is Birdability, a US-based organisation that aims to ensure the birding community and outdoors are welcoming, inclusive, safe and accessible for everybody. They have developed a range of useful birding resources with and for birders with sight impairment, which are available on their website.
We’ve also been in discussions with the British Standards Institute, who have been exploring the potential to develop design principles and guidance for producing tactile maps and signage. The Tactile Information Co-ordination Group, chaired by Andy Shipley, is leading this work, and they launched a proposal online for consultation from August to November this year.
Looking ahead to next year, we have a couple of new research proposals in the pipeline that would enable us to develop a programme of research that would build on the work of Sensing Nature. We will keep you posted as to whether the funding decisions swing our way or not – the funding landscape is increasingly competitive so we can only hope for the best!
In the meantime, if you would like to hear more about or access any of the Sensing Nature outputs in alternative formats to those online, or contribute to future Unlocking Landscapes Network activities, please do get in touch, either via the website or via email: Sarah.Bell@exeter.ac.uk.
We wish you as restful and safe a holiday period as possible, and look forward to a hopeful new year in 2022.
