We live in an era that has limited our moments of being with, wondering with and making with real, touch-able materials. Our awareness of our fingers’ gestures is becoming extinct but we still hold an urge to touch and explore the real thing. Haptic arts-based didactics stimulate the sense of touch and turn our attention to the here and now, allowing us to translate abstract contents into tangible artful creations.

This explorative study takes the form of five case studies, which have been conducted with different audiences and at diverse locations, under the framework of a workshop series entitled ‘Haptic Observations’. The research’s main study is to explore how the Haptic Observations workshops foster peoples’ personal perceptions. It does so by structuring the workshops under the notion of ‘attention as a form of education’ and letting participants follow process-driven art-making practices, exploring the not-knowing and being receptive to the new. Some of the workshops in this series study the notion of indirect haptic impressions and explore how haptic experiences could be fostered when touch is not possible. As an educational practice, it invites participants to follow a protocol of actions that aims to navigate them through framed observations toward composing textural and morphological understandings.

Having the position of a nature-based artist, I am interested in connecting haptic artful engagements with nature. Natural materials and clay lie at the heart of my pedagogical tools. Within this trajectory, I broadly investigate the impact of these materials on arts-based haptic learning. This investigation aims to showcase the multifarious abilities of such materials while considering sustainability in education. As an educational practice, it invites participants to actively touch the natural elements and the clay, letting the materials whisper their stories to human hands.