Green Gazing: 360 Projection and Movement Experience / Installation

Green Gazing: An immersive multimedia participatory movement exchange using sound, image and botanicals. In a room of plants, the viewers / participants experience guided movement prompts from a pre-recording or with an guide amidst ambient sound and video rooted in ecological elements. Surround sound and multi walled projections are altered using bio data from plants in the room. The ambient electronic sound and videoscape becomes a co-creation between plant, participant and artist. Green Gazing seeks to bring eco-therapy to humans, especially humans that are underrepresented in having access to both technology, ‘curated arts’ and the ‘natural’ environment. Developing Green Gazing’s meditation and guided movements we seek to incorporate education from communities in the areas where the project is exhibited creating accessible movement workshops in-person and virtual, and incorporating teachings from those who are historical and present day caretakers of it. We are seeking to be critical of the ‘wellness space’ that we are creating for an immersive experience incorporating our fears about the environment eg. the effects of climate change and holding space for the trauma we have induced on each other and the land, to be mindful of the appropriation that takes place in studios and centres focused on mediation and healing in the North America. While studying outdoor education, addictions and mental health counseling; co-creator Ashley Bowa became interested in the role nature could play in achieving positive mental and physical health outcomes. As a woman of colour, the experiences of isolation in both outdoor and traditional “wellness” spaces (I.e yoga studios) was troubling. She then turned her attention to the question of how to balance this essential need for connection to nature with sustainability and perhaps more importantly access for underserved populations. Can we find a way to enjoy the benefits of being in relationship with nature in new and unique ways; from the mundane and everyday to more radical and intimate? What role, if any, can technology play in these relationships? Green Gazing also creates a site-specific zine for the area we are presenting.