1. Multi-Sensory Design for Somatic Wellbeing
The illustration represent restricted diatery loop many people with chronic gut diseases experience. By Dila Demir
Multi-Sensory Design for Somatic WellBeing is a two years long design research project that is lead by Dila Demir. The project focuses on improving somatic care which is nursing the physical as well as the mental aspects of human beings. To facilitate such somatic care, we approach humans from an embodied cognition and phenomenological perspectives. These perspectives discuss that humans perceive the world and themselves through rich sensory engagements. Accordingly, we explore the ways of promoting somatic care through multi- sensorial creative interactions that can flourish new bodily insights. We examine somatic wellbeing within three diverse directions: 1) chronic diseases, 2) intimacy with far-away bodies, and 3) self and relational awareness. The first direction of the project delves into the challenges faced by individuals living with chronic gut diseases, with a specific focus on personal and social obstacles related to health stigma. The overarching goal of this direction is to explore how creative expression tools can assist individuals in coping with the social and personal aspects of living with such conditions. The second direction of the project explores intimacy between people living across distances from their loved ones through co-creative and multi-sensory engagements that can support people in experiencing the embodied aspects of intimacy in everyday life. Finally, the third direction examines somatic care to promote self and relational awareness through wearables or tangible artifacts that mediate multi-sensory experiences.
The project is funded by the Estonian Academy of Arts artistic research grant (2023-2025).