Unburden
Unburden is a week-long workshop which invites students to expand interoceptive awareness and use design methodologies and their art practices to create meaningful experiences of physical and emotional release.
In the early days of the course they draw their awareness into their bodies noticing patterns, mapping sensations. As the course and their awareness evolves they use the embodied data they’ve uncovered and their physical intelligence of their hands and bodies to design and build their discoveries into physical manifestations as embodied sculpture representing something they want to let go.
Students build out their designs using natural materials from the workshop site and a specialized natural paper pulp which can carry significant weight when dry but dissolves quickly in water.
In addition to the physical making students explore ritual/ ceremony design methods. They design a ceremony for their experience of unburdening: embedding personalized meaning into each step of their process.
On Friday we gather at the riverside and partake and witness and honor as our community partake in their ceremonies, take a ritual swim in the river and wash their burdens away.