Training the Senses

Since 2016, Training the Senses is a monthly ongoing series of interactive workshops that focuses on the interface of art and science. The underlying principle is that keen perception, physical presence, and intuition are important for the arts and generate valuable knowledge of the world. The workshops take various forms: participants participate in city walks, witness and preserve disappearing movements through dance, help a neuroscientist research the link between smell and words, and spend an evening with a food designer or a choreographer. The exercises aim to acquire new sensory knowledges.

Over fifty artists, scholars and scientists have participated in this series over the years, including the performance artists Alexis Blake and David Helbich, the musicians Joachim Junghanss, Mari Kvien Brunvoll and Aart Strootman, the scientists Roger Kneebone, Natasha Myers and Bernadette Jansma; the scholars Tim Ingold, Anna Harris and Emilie Sitzia; the choreographers Mami Izumi and Katja Heitmann; the city walkers Emmanuelle Wackerle and Soundtrack City; and the poets Emma Crebolder and Wiel Kusters.

Season 2020-2021

For 2020-2021 Marres has scheduled training sessions with puppeteers, magicians, surgeons, theater producers, sign language experts, psychologists, and urban researchers. Due to the recent COVID-19 measures, this year’s Training the Senses program will start in the fall.

Training the Senses is made possible through the financial support of de Overvoorde – Gordon Stichting / het Pauwhof Fonds.