Exploring Experience in the Edgelands

Author: Mike Collier

Project: Exploring Experience in the Edgelands

We were extraordinary lucky with the weather for our dawn chorus River Wear walk. It was cold, but sunny … and the day warmed as we walked. We began by standing still outside the National Glass Centre and slowly (very slowly) turning 360 degrees, LISTENING to the world as it began to wake up. This helped to make us more aware of senses other than sight, especially our sense of hearing.

Walk leader Keith Bowey, pointed out a number of different bird songs. Along the walk, we encountered a wide variety of flora and fauna as well as some upsetting signs of poverty and the careless deposition of litter. We made four stops at key points to doodle, think, photograph and be silent – no talking.

The walk followed the path along the north side of the river, across the Alexander bridge, then back along the south side of the Wear, over the Wearmouth Bridge before finishing for a welcome breakfast at the National Glass Centre. For me, one of the most interesting dialogues to arise out of the project has been whether a ‘knowledge-rich’ experience (in our case being ‘led’ by local lad and natural historian Keith Bowey who shared his knowledge of local flora encountered as we walked) enhances mindfulness especially in relation to place … or if it gets in the way of it. This was discussed with the staff and students (a group of what we have called co-researchers) in our evaluative session a week after the walk.

Diane Westwood
Although my background is in psychological science, I’ve become interested in questions that don’t respect subject boundaries and that lend themselves to more pragmatic approaches and playful arts-based methods. I’ve used the Co/Lab project to try out some of the issues that I’ve been wrestling with, for example, how to identify, capture and measure experience in place.

In Psychology this often leads to self-report questionnaires and I’ve used this pilot project to critique that approach. I am more interested in exploring the potential of narrative methods to capture experience and to enhance well-being through meaning-making. The development of an individual story to connect nature and self was designed as an intervention in the project.

I learned, however, that whilst participants recognised the value of developing the story, they needed more time and support. This is an aspect of the project that I would like to develop in the future as I think it may help short term, situation-specific effects to become more enduring. I have been keen in this project to maintain a participatory approach and participants have engaged as co-researchers. The co-researchers have brought and shared the perspectives of their respective disciplines – some of which highlight differences, some of which reveal similarities. Our reflective discussion has brought much value to the evaluation of the different aspects of the project: in particular its interventions and measures. This has helped shape my ideas for the larger project and how it might be developed for a future funding bid.