SenseSquared. Becoming through the senses: towards artistic ways of being in the world

The SenseSquared project sought to explore how a sensory, embodied and artistic approach in education can lead to a more integrated understanding of subjects at school and ultimately a more connected, sustainable world. The project emphasized the role of the arts in education, teacher training, and research, aiming to make artistic attitudes central to all learning. SenseSquared highlighted the gap between current educational practices and the social changes needed, noting that while education has evolved since its widespread introduction in the 19th century, the core paradigm has remained largely unchanged. As a result, schools nowadays struggle with diversity and inclusion, yet these are essential for a thriving society. The project advocates for an education that not only accepts but actively promotes diversity, fostering communication, unexpected outcomes, and connection. By integrating the arts, which connect diversity with inclusion and understanding, SenseSquared proposed an educational approach that enables all students and teachers to thrive in greater interconnectedness and ecological responsibility for the world.

SenseSquared's main goal was to demonstrate how a sensuous, embodied and artistic approach can reveal new perspectives in education, fostering deep integrated learning processes. Such an approach, based on artistic attitudes, can be adopted in a short time and proves to be rewarding and joyful for all involved, positively impacting both students and teachers. The project explored key questions about human connection, education, and societal needs, using the temporal arts (music, dance, drama, and performance art) as models for shared, sensory-based learning. By drawing on the musicality of early mother-infant interaction as an educational prototype, SenseSquared showed that a new educational paradigm is possible, is easy to understand and integrate into existing school systems and regular curricula. It improves teacher-student interactions, enhances intrinsic motivation, and nurtures joy in learning. The project spans pre-school to secondary education, supporting a holistic view of human development. It provides confidence to schools exploring innovative educational models and addresses the evolving needs of society, encouraging education to move beyond outdated methods and shaping a more connected and ecological future.

Built around the aforementioned central theme, SenseSquared’s activities were manifold and represented all partners’ specific expertise and strengths, mutually reinforced by an intense collaboration throughout the whole project term. The partnership deployed the following activities. 7 Transnational Partner Meetings visiting all participating countries. Several in between online meetings to support the spirit of ongoingness throughout the whole project. Multi-day training sessions in different countries with partners, teachers and school directors of associated partners and artists (BE, DK, NO). A two-day online training ‘A Team Ethnography. Workshop ‘The Sound of One Hand Clapping’ with master students of teacher training at Universidade Nova de Lisboa (PT). Multiple series of artistic interventions in schools (BE, NL, DK, NO). Workshops Tools & Kits with invited artist Nicholas Paris and artistic interventions in schools (NL). Workshops with focus on the voice for teachers in their own school (NO). Workshops and discussions with students in teacher training (NO). Videotaped Interviews with teachers and artists (NO, BE). Development, refinement and presentation of the PaPI—Opus 8z. online performance (PT). z.Lab 1000 Birds sessions: 5 online training sessions with kindergarten teachers from PT, NL, UK and BE (online from PT). Multiple ‘Bird Offices’ to provide teachers with ongoing support (PT). A one month exhibition One Thousand Birds at Tabloo Dessel (BE). One Thousand Birds community project at Tabloo Dessel (BE). Implementation of hEAR DROPS during Musicaklassen 2022-2023 & 2023-2024 (BE). Introduction to Zintuin during Musicaklassen study day for teachers. SenseSquared organised the following multiplier events. Two webinars on hEAR DROPS (online from BE). Two international conferences (PT, BE). A three day symposium Training the Senses involving teachers, artists, directors and education specialists (NL). First International SenseSquared Conference in Lisbon highlighting the project’s rationale and approach (PT). Second International SenseSquared Conference in Brussels focusing on the project’s concrete results (BE). A SenseSquared introduction course EXTENDED, for youth (14-20 years) (NL). Weekly meetings with the youth group EXTENDED with focus on the SenseSquared rationale (NL). Multi-day authors’ residencies at Sisters Hope Home (DK) Presentations and other contributions about SenseSquared at external conferences: Sensing together: Collaborative and comparative experiments in a team sensory ethnography at the Uncommon Senses IV Conference in Montreal (CA) hEAR DROPS at CALT Conference in Osijek (HR). hEAR DROPS and Zintuin at theEUnet MERYC Conference in Barcelona (ES). hEAR DROPS at TUIG Festival and Het Animatieparlement in Antwerpen (BE). Teachers Musical Practice at the EUnet MERYC Conference in Barcelona (ES). PaPI Opus 8.z at the EUnet MERYC Conference in Barcelona (ES). Presenting SenseSquared’s new educational paradigm at the Erasmus+ thematic meeting ‘Embrace inclusion and diversity in your projects’ in Zagreb (HR). A two-day international Zintuin introduction course for teachers interested in the SenseSquared rationale (BE). Two book presentations at the end of the project (NL, DK).

The concrete outputs were as follows. An elaborate SenseSquared dedicated website that attracted more than 10.000 international views. 4 hEAR DROPS episodes: freely available animated stories on YouTube with a very artistic look that invite teachers and elementary school children (or children and their parents) to interact creatively and in diverse ways with focus on the voice. The beautifully crafted publication ‘A Small World or a Place Between Us’ by artist Nicolàs Paris breathes the spirit of SenseSquared in a tangible way. The booklet is a collection of ideas that can be applied in diverse educational contexts and levels of understanding, opening up a sensory and embodied awareness that there are multiple ways of understanding the world. The publication is downloadable for free through the SenseSquared website and can be obtained as a hard copy for free at Marres (NL). The book ‘Inhabitation — Sisters Hope Home’ is the result of a research conducted during multiple stays at Sisters Hope Home in Hedehusene (DK), where ‘inhabitants’ left their writings, collections or objects at the Sisters Hope Archive for further study. The book contains contributions by invited authors and SenseSquared partners and is downloadable for free via the SenseSquared website, or can be bought as a hard copy at Sisters Hope. ‘Sensory Probes. Essays and Exercies for Teachers to Cultivate Artistic Attitudes in the Classroom’ is another book published by the SenseSquared consortium. One might say it contains the main rationale of the project. It also testifies about the project’s main activities and contexts and reflects on their results. Drawing on evolutionary, biological and anthropological insights, the publication proposes an educational paradigm based on the senses and how the body interacts with the environment. Thus, it presents a vision of education based on (radical) embodied cognition. Comprehensive handouts or presentation overviews of the various training sessions, containing generic but hands-on exercises were shared with participants. This was the case after the ‘Growing into music’ sessions (where a direct link was made between aspects of the temporal arts and how they relate to another view on education), the sensory ethnography training (inviting teachers to take a more ethnographic stance to education) and de training in Stavanger. Talking about ‘other results’, we can say that the project has opened up new perspectives among involved teachers and principals on the so-called ‘weak’ but all the more powerful role of arts in education. The project made them think more deeply about their usual approach, convinced them that other perspectives on education are possible and that you can indeed approach education in a way that may be more relevant to the future. Moreover, the project has gained substantial interest from scholars, like e.g: Pamela Burnard, Professor of Arts, Creativities and Educations at Cambridge University. Ms. Burnard is an internationally acclaimed expert on these matters. She was one of our keynote speakers at the Second SenseSquared Conference in Brussels. The title of her presentation was ‘Letting Arts Transform: Making the Case with Eruptive Education Practices.’ You can read her endorsement on the cover of the Sensory Probes book. Ms. Burnard also wrote very nice comments about the SenseSquared project on her LinkedIn page. Vlad Glaveanu, Professor of Psychology at Dublin City University. Mr. Glaveanu contributed as a second keynote speaker at the Second SenseSquared Conference and wrote an endorsement for Sensory Probes as well. He is an advocate of ‘an education of possibility’. Max Liljefors, Professor of Art History and Visual Studies at Lund University, stayed at Sisters Hope as a visiting artist several times and contributed with an article to the book ‘Inhabitation — Sisters Hope Home’. He also wrote a beautiful endorsement for the Sensory Probes book cover. The First SenseSquared Conference in Lisbon attracted a substantial interest from a group of educators in Guinée-Bissau, who attended the whole conference online. The Second SenseSquared Conference in Brussels attracted several scholars and education specialists from Ghent University, KULeuven University and Vrije Universiteit Brussel. The panel talks in Brussels were respectively led by Tobias Frenssen (Head of the Centre of Expertise on Education & Development at UCLL University of Applied Sciences) and by Filip Verneert, Postdoctoral Researcher at CESAMM (the Centre for Social Action & Music Making at Ghent University). Ultimately, the project had a profound impact on the future work of all partners, who have started breathing the SenseSquared ideas and approaches in their daily work, and often expanded their work to other target groups (e.g. broader age range) and contexts (e.g. also online).