Axel Ewald - recent projects, discoveries & reflections

"Still Alive"

A workshop exploration
of connective practices
focusing on our relatedness
to the earth and the living creatures, which populate it

a one-day workshop at Oxford Brookes University, conducted by Axel Ewald

In collaboration with the University of the Trees

The aim of the workshop

was to explore ways to open our senses, minds and hearts to the familiar and less familiar, the obvious and the hidden aspects of our close environment. Might there be hidden life behind the appearance of wintery gloom and death? The exploration included close encounters with trees and their naked shapes in winter; with manifold manifestations of decay and growth; and with the hidden life of creeping and crawling creatures in the earth. How do we respond to what might be unfamiliar, unexpected sights and discoveries? What do our responses tell us about what we are observing and about ourselves? What insights can we gain about our relatedness to the life-processes in Nature and how can these insights inform and transform our outlook in the wider field of social processes?
The workshop was based on current and evolving practices related to my PhD research project “Redeeming the Soul of Landscape and Redeeming Landscape for the Soul”, in which I am exploring the application of Goethean Science processes in the field of Social Sculpture and their extension into practices focusing on our relatedness to Nature and to each other.
The workshop was designed as a journey consisting of a number of encounters, both indoors and outdoors, each of which would explore a different dimension of relatedness.

INTRODUCING OURSELVES - IMAGES OF NATURE IN WINTER

Sitting around the circle of fallen leaves participants introduced themselves by sharing one image of "Nature in Winter" - a memory of a particular landscape or a personal experience. While the person would relate his/her image, the other participants were asked to listen attentively with their eyes closed, in order to be able to inwardly 'live' in the image of the other person.

The images included descriptions of sense perceptions like colours, forms, sounds; experiences of stillness and inwardness; unusual and unexpected encounters with creatures; musings about life and death. This intimate sharing process, in which each person could connect to his/her own inner world of images and memories and share this with the group, provided a fertile ground for the later explorations.

photograph by Dianne Regisford

ENCOUNTERING GESTURES OF DECAY

photograph by Helena Fox

Participants were asked to come closer to the circle of shrivelled chestnut leaves which I had prepared on the ground, to closely observe, touch, smell, listen. Then we closely observed one of the leaves which we picked from the ground. Following the observation participants were invited to share their impressions:

People commented on the leaves as conveying a sense of dryness, fragility, inwardness and separateness, their 'contorted and tortured forms' of having become frozen at the moment of death. But is it the tree who has died or aren't those leaves not just the discarded shreds of its garment which the tree was ready to shed?

PICTURING THE PROCESS OF DECAY

People were then asked to inwardly picture the whole process of the shedding of the leaves, from the green foliage of summer to the decaying leaves having been discarded beneath the tree.

ENCOUNTERING BARREN TREE SHAPES

photograph by Helena Fox

For the next practice we ventured out into the cold and damp park landscape at Haddington Hall. Each person chose a tree and, to start with, observed it from afar, getting a sense of its shape and proportion. Participants were asked to slowly approach their tree, seeing the tree from a different perspective by looking up into its crown or down towards its roots, then getting into close physical contact: touching the bark, embracing the trunk, smelling the earth at its feet. All along people were to pay attention to the gradual change in their relationship to the tree.

Eventually each person would stand with his/her back leaning against the tree and facing inwards to the open space between the individual trees.

EXPLORING THE BRANCH SECTIONS - SPATIAL EVIDENCE OF LIVING IN TIME

photograph by Dianne Regisford

Returning to the workshop we closely explored oak-branches, representing the outmost periphery of a tree. We embarked on a disciplined observation process, in which each person would share one observation only, building on the observation shared by the previous person.

photograph by Helena Fox

This process allowed us to collectively build a shared, detailed and visually rich picture of the object of our observation. We identified the half-moon shapes underneath each bud as the 'scars' of last year's leaves - being struck by the proximity of past and future, of life and death in the 'eye of the leaf'.Following this we surveyed the branch for further evidence for developmental processes and found where last year's growth had begun. Gradually the branch section and its frozen forms in space began to become transparent for the time-process which created it. We managed to fathom the evidence of one year's growth. Penetrating what we saw with our capacity of thinking in processes, the tree's living in time became 'evident' in space.

photograph by Helena Fox

AN ATTEMPT AT EXACT SENSORY IMAGINATION

Participants were then asked to close their eyes and to vividly imagine (on our inner 'screen') the entire process of one year's growth from the end buds to the new sections end buds.

People found this practice very challenging. It asks for the inner capacity of mobile imagination, which can fluidly connect one image with the next one in order to create a continuous developmental process. At this stage most people failed for lack of will forces to perform this task. In addition we had not seen enough visual evidence of the different stages of development, only the beginning and the end.

The practice also raised questions about what are the necessary requirements for imagination to be exact and sensory (Goethe claimed to have developed 'exact sensory imagination' as a requisite tool for the research in the real of the life sciences) ? 

A 'SNAPSHOT WALK' EXPLORING THE WIDER FIELD OF OUR RELATEDNESS

photograph by Helena Fox

After lunch break we again ventured outside for a 'snapshot walk', taking in four 'snapshot evidences' which would put the morning's explorations of the tree's life in winter into a larger context. Participants would follow me on a silent walk leading from station to station. At each station people would take on a particular viewpoint or action which I first had introduced.

station 1: moss landscape on a tree trunk, photograph by Axel Ewald

station 2: uncovering layers of compostation and encountering the creatures
that do the work, photograph by Dianne Regisford

station 3: tree seedlings unfolding on the forest floor, photograph by Axel Ewald

station 4: tree carcasses in a junk-yard for unwanted trees, photograph by Axel Ewald

After completing the walk we returned to the studio and split up into groups of 4-5 people. Each group had 20 minutes to review the walk and share impressions, experiences, questions and insights from what we had seen. The groups then gave a summary report to the forum.

Many people related to the complexity of impressions conveyed by the four stations, which were experienced as confusing to start with, but which, after some pondering, began to make more sense, less as a logical sequence, but rather as a mosaic which presents certain facets of a picture: 

• evidence of nature's ability to create mini eco-systems, small wholenesses within a larger whole 

• a glimpse into the recycling facilities of nature, where death leads to new life and little creatures are constantly busy transforming matter 

• an experience of nature's still abundant forces of renewal and growth, even in the middle of winter 

• a meeting with the shocking, apparent indifference and cruelty of human beings towards living nature

The sharing raised many questions touching upon the responsibility of human beings towards nature and man/woman's right to determine the destiny of a non-human creature.

SUMMARY AND REFLECTION

Here is a selection of comments by which participants summarised their experience of the workshop:

"the circle of fallen leaves set the tone of the workshop from the outset and served as a visual anchor throughout the work. It gradually became 'charged' ..."

"the fact that the final practice (the snapshot walk) was open-ended, was confusing to start with, but also very activating and thought provoking."

"I was very moved by the power of sharing our inner images with everybody listening with closed eyes."

"the communal effort of closely observing and describing a nature object, so that it becomes present between people, is very impressive and powerful." 

"nature offers us pictures, images, true metaphors which are parallel to our experiences in everyday life and human relationships."

"our pain in meeting nature stems from the sense of separation. In the plant, things just happen, everything moves and develops and is connected. We can only bring about this movement by willing it! What can motivate the will?"

"amazing how in nature life and death are closely intertwined. We want to push death away - and, actually, life as well. In nature they are both present all the time ..."

"the practices provided ample opportunities to explore imaginative thought. But we all the time have to go back to the 'evidence' on the ground. Material and Imagination are to be in a dynamic relationship..."

"Having had this experience of intimacy with nature will make me behave differently."

"I had a profound experience of connectedness. Life processes are not only outside in nature, they are in me as well."

"I found the practice of imagining growth a potent tool for developing the capacity of inner movement and flexibility."

photograph by Helena Fox

Many thanks to Prof. Shelley Sacks for making this workshop possible at Brookes University and for her continuing support and inspiration; thanks to Helena Fox and Dianne Regisford for providing me with their sensitive photographs and thanks to all participants for their interest, commitment and engagement along the journey.