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Office of Undergraduate Research Home » 2023 Undergraduate Research Symposium Schedules

Found 1 project

Visual Arts & Design Presentation 3

2:30 PM to 4:00 PM
The Empathy Fortress 
Presenter
  • Julia Carp, Senior, Art Mary Gates Scholar, UW Honors Program
Mentor
  • Michael Swaine, Art
Session
    Visual Arts & Design Showcase
  • Allen Library Research Commons
  • 2:30 PM to 4:00 PM

  • Other students mentored by Michael Swaine (1)
The Empathy Fortress close

This installation is part of ongoing research I am conducting through my interdisciplinary art practice, blossoming out of a fascination with people, their immediate experience, language and healing. When someone interacts with a space or object, whether it is a work of art, another person or the natural world, the felt sense in their body changes, sometimes in subtle and transient ways, other times more obviously pervading. Shortly after absorbing, expressing or repressing the feeling of the moment, language is often added in an attempt to identify the intangible experience we are having. This process happens almost instantaneously. So why does this matter? This matters because artists, similarly to therapists or children, have the unique potential to meet people and moments exactly where they are, an act of empathetic courage that is so desperately needed on a large scale in today's world. Does the potency of a moment change in an environment where words and other technologies are very intentionally omitted or integrated? How do the spaces we inhabit enforce monotony and isolation? Can prolonged attention empower individuals to feel seen and connected to places and people they were otherwise unassociated with? These are some of the questions I am diving into. This project hypothesizes that understanding is not primarily linguistic, instead an energetic and artistic practice that can be catalyzed with loving-awareness and time as a medium. In this research, I am linking together social action, craft, performance art, science and alchemy in hopes of creating validated individuals and therefore more kind and conscious communities.


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