Sensibilities 1: impromptu investigations, sea-crossings, and the month of March
Welcome to the first installment of Sensibilities! Exactly four months from today, the Puget Sound Workshop Workshop will begin. With that in mind, we wanted to compile some of the far-ranging resources, ideas, and inspirations that have been bouncing around in our heads lately, in the hopes that they pique your interest, jumpstart your creativity, or simply add a little intrigue to your day. Look for this little missive on the 23rd of every month from now until camp begins -- and if something here inspires you or your thinking about your workshop, we'd love to hear about it!
In no particular order:
1 is Dear Data, a year-long personal documentary project by designers Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec!
Each and every week, they chose one aspect of their lives to track, chart, and make beautiful before sending it off to the other, all the way across the Atlantic. As they put it, "Instead of using data just to become more efficient, we argue we can use data to become more humane and to connect with ourselves and others at a deeper level."
2 is this utterly delightful collection of 3-minute stories from the inimitable This American Life. An oldie but a goodie, this hour of radio celebrates 20 stories too little or odd or uncomplicated for TAL's usual format. Included: teenaged investigative reporters, audio of a hilarious two-minute play by the Chicago Neo-Futurists, and an ecstatic batch of clams, among other wonderful things.
3 is this digression into using spatial memory to support other kinds of remembering -- here extreme polyglot Tim Doner is talking specifically about learning languages, but it's a fascinating way to orient your brain no matter what the subject. Skip straight to the section where he's talking about memorization strategies at 8'28", or watch the whole video for a fascinating look at the intersections of language, culture, and actual communication:
the full video of Tim out and about in multilingual NYC /
Tim's language-learning Facebook community
4 is this series of interviews with Syrian refugees about what they plan to bring with them when they attempt the dangerous crossing across the Mediterranean, and why:
Pictured above are Nizar's (last name redacted) belongings: lifejacket, passport, ginseng, painkiller, sea-sickness medicine, dates, diplomas, and other family paperwork.
5 is this informal, crowd-sourced investigation into the apparently gendered difference in how people change clothes:
I love that sometimes we don't know what we know. And also (maybe more interestingly) sometimes we don't know why we know what we know!
6 is from Jenna: "the Invisibilia Podcast's “Entanglement” episode, about a woman who physically feels the things that other people around her feel -- and about how we all experience more subtle versions of this same phenomenon." Check it out!
7 is these perception-defying, assumption-demolishing .gifs by Portland artist Zach Dougherty!
until next time!
Devan
The Puget Sound Workshop Workshop is a summer camp where everyone's a teacher and everyone's a student. For more information or to get started on registration, please click here!
