Page 14 - JCAU-5-2

Journal of Chinese
Architecture and Urbanism Gestures for interdependence: Designing the unfelt

the river Dommel and a series of small side rivers) was surface; some also took elements of debris from human
introduced as a research environment. The group that activities (a can, artificial fishing lure), and others collected
took part was explicitly (neuro-)diverse in an attempt to reed, chestnuts, flowers, and leaves.
33
gather a variety of ways of attentive listening and sensing (b) Making: the gesture of reading interrelations
to question rather neurotypical ways of thinking about
34
spatial and environmental esthetic experience. In this part, We facilitated an intuitive design score that was
we will focus on (i) the intentional gathering of materials not aimed at a consensual process (all working on one
and (ii) the construction of small-scale interventions that coherent end result) but that allowed for an intuitive and
were reflected on by the participants. The reflection I will relational approach. We worked in pairs and in silence,
make is on the moment of taking (a) and the moment creating a way of communicating design decisions
of making (b) as they recalibrate the relationship with through a gestural approach. Within the cocreation setup,
more-than-human entities, formerly known as resources. participants were invited to “read each other silently” while
Through a series of implemented gestures, we will engage cocreating and react intuitively, similar to the approach
with the questions on taking (where do you get material, in the process of taking. Dance theorist André Lepecki
how do you relate to the action of “taking’”) and the refers to this performative process from dance theory as
questions of making (how does a different relation to a way of “leading-following” (moving with and alongside
taking inform the “making”). each other, taking space, and making space for the other
reciprocally). The final interventions were first experienced
(a) Taking: The honorable harvest as gesture in silence and then discussed in groups. We looked at the
In the introduction to the canoe trip, the question interventions as both future building blocks or foundations
of, “what are you allowed” to take was shared with the for a performative installation, but we also looked at them
participants. As everybody was aware of the purpose as scale models or spaces for other-than-human entities to
of this material (creating an impromptu performative coexist with us, humans.
installation), we shared the purpose of the “gesture of
taking” as both a political act (of extraction) and the The collective learning here was twofold: (i) The
potential of this gesture as a way to restore a reciprocal participants’ understanding of “dealing with unseen
relationship with the Dommel delta and its more-than- bodies, formerly known as resources” expanded through
human inhabitants. All participants were invited — so not the different dramaturgical moments and the implemented
obliged — to grow awareness of “taking with care” and to design gestures. (ii) The combination between taking
develop an attentiveness for “what the river was already and making (a process that in a lot of design projects is
giving us” (elements drifting on the surface, for example). disconnected) was valuable for the regenerative approach
We explained the principle of “taking with care through to design we are aimed at, and this is (1) on the level of
ideas as the honorable harvest ” by Robin Wall Kimmerer. the group process where we learned to work together
35
intuitively with each other, (2) on a renewed relationality
Through the introduction, a general attentiveness and with other-than-human bodies, and (3) on the collective
tempo were installed for the workshop. While sharing process of aesthetic experience and the polyphonic
the canoe with a biologist, we reflected on how plants reflection upon these experiences. After the workshop,
communicate their “readiness” to be taken (some species we dismantled the bigger installations and positioned the
produce reddish colors, so animals know that these are different bodies on the banks, ready to take them to other
not yet ready). Without going deeper into the biological destinations alongside the Dommel (going further north).
process, what is important here is the ability of more-than-
human species to communicate. What counts for plants 3.1.3. Maas 36
also counts for the river (her speed, her way of flowing (a) Presencing: Gestures for a regenerative aesthesis?
and overflowing). It is rather a matter of training our In December 2022, I cofacilitated a performative walk
attentiveness and re-designing our design gestures from toward and alongside the Maas in Maastricht as part of
a renewed embodied positionality toward them. Half of the Winternights Festival . A group of 10 participants was
37
the participants picked up floating grass from the water invited for (i) an introduction on the framing and aim of
33 About 10 participants with different cultural backgrounds, the walk (renegotiating our human relationship to the river),
sexual orientations, and a different positionality on the (ii) a walk toward the river in silence, and (iii) following a
spectrum of neurodversity (o.a. ADD, dyslexia and autism).
34 Neurotypical people are those who are considered as 36 This chapter is written on the Eurostar between Calais and
neurologically normal. London, 75 m deep on the bottom of the sea.
35 Wall Kimmerer R., Braiding Sweetgrass, 2013, Milkweed 37 An event co-organised by SoAP Maastricht, Via Zuid and
Publishing Minneapolis (USA). C-TAKT in several locations in the city of Maastricht.

Volume 5 Issue 2 (2023) 8 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.0358