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The practice that is the focus of the workshop emerged from my artistic research project titled MAEL (Meeting At Eye Level). It was developed in the Weinviertel, a rural area characterized by vineyards and viticulture, which is also the habitat of brown hares, wild rabbits, deer, ground squirrels and a variety of bird species. As an artistic research endeavour, MAEL aims to generate new knowledge about relating to wildlife within a decolonising framework. This requires an awareness of the profound asymmetries in the history and present of this relationship. As posture-related parameters are fundamental to the practice, the workshop starts with a breath-focused meditation to facilitate a state of mindful awareness. The practice’s key technique is based on ‘introspection’, an early experimental psychological approach that we will explore together. The main activity of the workshop involves meeting the venue's garden residents — the various flora and fauna — at eye level, and experimenting with ways of verbally expressing our experiences during these encounters. By sharing the results of our interactions with the garden's inhabitants, we can identify similarities and differences, and look out for patterns regarding the structure and content of our textual material. Questions regarding the potential for interspecies relationships, rooted in the practice of 'meeting at eye level', will be a particular focus.
