Making Sense

Photo: Making Sense

Our work with artist and illustrator, Lizzie Finlay continues as we develop our story telling techniques for Shadow Girl – Origins.

As artists who live with disability we understand that simply telling a story isn’t always the best way to connect with everybody. Access to the arts is about variety, experimentation and creativity.  Our goal is to make work where the access needs are almost invisible, and the audience (whether living with disability or not) share a similar, yet unique experience.

We’ve been working with Lizzie and our Artistic Director, Tom Hogan, to explore different methods of ‘telling’ a story.

Close Your Eyes 

To help us explore different techniques we’re using the five senses as our stimulus. Some of our senses are much easier to describe. For most people, vision is the dominant sense, which means we’re much more able to find imagery to describe something. However, for many their other senses can be harder to connect with. Sometimes our sense of sight can overpower our other senses making it harder for us to connect with them. 

One way to deal with this is to shut down our vision with a blindfold or by closing our eyes. Tom asked each of our artists to close their eyes and handed them an object for them to describe. This can be an unusual experience, not being able to see what it is you’re touching. 

Once we got used to this odd sensation we were better prepared, and able to explore our other sense. 

Tell a Story Through Your Senses

We then worked to connect with all our other senses and imagine how we can describe your experience of a sunny day. We created soundscapes, and discussed the different objects, sensations that we could utilise to set the scene. 

Sight 

Blue Sky

White fluffy clouds 

Dappled yellow sun bursting through trees 

Shadows cast – light & dark contrast

Sound

A gentle buzzing of the bees

Tweeting, chirping birds 

Shh’ing of a light breeze 

Laughing kids playing

Touch 

Heat on skin

A light breeze brushing skin 

Bouncy grass under foot 

Smell 

Flowery fresh like linen

Freshly cut grass 

Dry soft air

Taste 

Vanilla ice-cream 

Orange Ice-lolly 

A light salt in the air

Our next step is to use these techniques within our story telling process. How can we help our audiences to experience the Shadow Girl – Origins story using different senses?