Empathy and Landscape Workshop

Exploring the connection between landscape, empathy, and image-making

Location: Globe Art Point, Malminkatu 5, 00100 Helsinki.
Date and Time: Saturday April 20th, 10 – 16.
To book a place in the workshop you can email david.flood@helsinki.fi with the subject ‘Empathy and Landscape Workshop’. Places are limited to 12 participants.

Are you interested in learning ways to connect with the landscapes around you? On April 20^th I will run a workshop at Globe Art Point based on concepts of landscape and how it is mediated through image-making practices. Through the workshop, we examine empathy within the context of an embodied aesthetic experience in which observers transfer their emotional content onto the landscape. The workshop offers those who work with landscapes or who are interested in working with landscapes tools for engaging with landscape as a concept. We will also focus on ways to develop empathy when working with contested landscapes.

The workshop takes a broad definition of landscape that goes beyond it as a representational concept. Although the foundation of the word landscape lies in representation, it can be thought of as a process that is constantly being reformulated. While terms such as space and place are often used to describe our environment, landscape being an inherently aesthetic concept means that it has aspects that place, or space do not necessarily possess. The aesthetic aspect of landscape allows us to respond to it through our senses. Landscapes are not just something we look upon, they are something we are actively in, and they are in us too. The emotional significance we attach to our landscapes stems from our internalization of them. Therefore, by studying specific concepts of empathy, we can better understand our conceptions of landscape.

The workshop will run on Saturday, April 20^th from 10 am to 4 pm. Part of the workshop will involve spending some time outside in the landscape. During the field trip, I ask that participants use their smartphone cameras to record some images which will be discussed in the afternoon, further details will be provided at the beginning of the workshop. Tea, coffee, and a light snack will be provided. Lunch is not provided.

Schedule
10 – 11	Presentation on the research being carried out
11 – 11.45	Discussion
11.45 – 12	Break
12 – 13	Fieldtrip in Helsinki centre
13 – 14	Lunch break
14 – 15	Sharing images, final discussion
15 – 15.15	Break
15.15 – 16	Discussion and questionnaire

The workshop is being run as part of a PhD project at the University of Helsinki. During the workshop data will be collected in the form of a questionnaire and the final discussion will be recorded. All data will be anonymised, for example, the discussion recording will be transcribed and only the transcribed anonymised version of the discussion will be used in the research findings. The workshop is free, but places are limited to 12 people. To book a place in the workshop you can email david.flood@helsinki.fi with the subject ‘Empathy and Landscape Workshop’.