Getting in Touch with Plants. Artistic and literary workshops focused on senses

We conducted workshops with the staff of the Silesian Library. The aim of the meeting was to facilitate interactions that could trigger unrestrained, creative thinking and action; to inspire imagination and encourage open discussions about relationships with plants.

The central theme of the workshop was touch: a direct experience that often requires stepping outside the so-called comfort zone, yet allows—more than other sensory experiences—a focus on living in the moment and in a given space. It was this gift and experience that ultimately became the “Ariadne’s thread” of this meeting.

Event 1: We began by giving participants sensory gifts in the form of “sensory boxes”—containers lined with plant-based materials, prepared by students of the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Katowice under the supervision of Dr. Joanna Zdzienicka-Obałek. This initiation into the world of plants was accompanied by deconstructing the abstract names of plants and discovering that behind each name lies someone’s individual encounter with the plant and a specific experience, sometimes tactile as well. After heading outdoors to explore the library’s surroundings, we attempted to turn our own sensory experiences into a semantic motivation for new names that bore the mark of personal encounters.

Event 2: Not stopping at giving plants new names, we explored the possible reciprocity in this relationship: a potential symbolic exchange with plants. After discovering their traces in familiar expressions, we invited participants to create frottage, deepening the practice of conscious interaction with nature through unrestrained touch and focusing attention on the encountered structural nuances. Using manual techniques with thin paper and powdered charcoal and graphite, participants uncovered micro-landscapes emerging on the paper’s surface. These traces then became the starting point for an exercise in active imagination, expressed through free writing. At the end, we received imprinted traces of this writing on tracing paper from the participants, which we accepted as a gift.

The proposed workshop exercises engaging the sense of touch proved to stimulate creativity, both in visual arts and in writing.