Open Senses: Ideas in Progress

I would like to tell you about an event happening this Saturday at Rich Mix in Shoreditch: Let's Hibernate, from Open Senses.

Open Senses is the world's first festival devoted to sensory practice, the sensory arts and research. It was launched in May 2017 as a three-day festival across 25 London venues and featuring 50 events and the work of 200 practitioners. Open Senses positions London as the world-leading centre of excellence in sensory practice. We invite all Londoners, as well as each and every tourist and visitor, to freely come and open their noses, tastebuds, and skin to the world; to notice and savour the natural, physical environment around them.

Next event: Let's Hibernate! Saturday 24th November 2018, 7:30 - 9:30 pm @ Rich Mix

Join Open Senses on 24th November and explore the concept of Hibernation through the senses. Can we bend time, slow the body down, switch off our sensory awareness, and drift into a deep hibernation? Join a team of sensory practitioners that will stimulate your senses to find out. During the long winter months, time slows, darkness closes in, and we can all feel sleepy, and inactive. Many species take this a step further and hibernate. The body slows down and breathing, temperature, metabolic and heart rates, all decrease to conserve energy. Let’s Hibernate is an experience that aims to take the audience into a hypnogogic state - the experience of the transitional state from wakefulness to sleep. The event will feature:

1. Workshop Dr Eugene Feygleson, creator of I=U festival and Open Senses creative advisor, joins forces with well-being specialist, Play Pirate and creator of 'toucantoo' Natasha Blok to create a playful exploration of the hibernation process. Grizzly in the winter? Utilising Italian bear biologist research, they will explore what similarities there might be between humans and other mammals when it comes to hibernation. Get creative and hands on in a playful light-hearted way with ‘toucantoo’ to set the scene for forest bedtime. We’re all going in a bear hut... Come equipped with lots of clothing and a sense of adventure...

2. Audio Visual Montage Can audio visual stimuli twinned with aromatic taste and scent encourage the body into a hypnogogic state? Programme Manager for Open Senses Rosie O'Connor brings you an visual montage alongside audio curated by Eight Fold Way to experiment if through changing light and visual stimuli we can slow the body and mind down into a sleepy state. WARNING: This video montage contains flashing images which may not be suitable for audience members with photosensitive epilepsy.

3. Scent Perfumer and creator of 4160Tuesdays, Sarah McCartney, spent 14 years as head writer for Lush before embarking on her own quest to make bespoke perfumes that capture times and places or a person at a certain moment. Everyone's reactions to smells are different so how will you respond to our invisible creations? Can scents bring you into a deep relaxation and sleep? And can they bring you back out the other side? To learn more about 4160Tuesdays click here.

4. Taste Enjoy amazing herbal creations by Hedge Herbs. Hedge Herbs is a community herbalist based in East London with 6 years experience of facilitating group learning and teaching short and long courses in herbal medicine. Rasheeqa is passionate about collaborative and participatory herbalism in the community with a focus on sharing and exchanging healing traditions between the diverse cultures and knowledge of London. She is currently initiating a community apothecary project in Wathamstow - Community Herbal Hands - which seeks to develop networks of medicinal plant cultivation, harvesting, preparing, knowledge-sharing and use for health and wellbeing support in neighbourhoods. Can her herbal creations help you leave the busy rush of London behind and slip into a hibernative state?

To learn more about Hedge Herbs click here. So settle in, relax and Let's Hibernate! https://richmix.org.uk/events/open-senses-ideas-in-progress/

Kind regards, Rosie