• Eleni-Ira Panourgia ∆ (Gustave Eiffel University, France);
• Lisa Sandlos ∆ (Brock University, Canada)

• Jackie Martin ∆ (Biodiversity Coordinator, Office of Sustainability, Concordia University, Canada)
• Rebecca Tittler ∆ (Loyola College for Diversity and Sustainability, Concordia University, Canada)
• Maya Lach-Aidelbaum ∆ (Communication Studies, Concordia University, Canada)
• Liz Miller ∆ (Communication Studies, Concordia University, Canada / Environmental Media Maker)

This workshop investigates sensory dimensions of trees as a way to build upon tree literacy efforts by researchers affiliated with the Concordia Tree Project on the Loyola Campus. As a laboratory of micro-forests for students and the Montreal community to learn about the wealth of trees on the campus, this forestry project aligns well with the cross-disciplinary project Sonic Kinesthetic Forest (SKF), a collaboration between a movement analyst/choreographer, sound artist and landscape designer. This interactive workshop will bring both projects together to experiment with modes of listening and sound-making, embodied drawing and somatic-kinesthetic exploration of selected trees on campus. Guided by both the Concordia and the SKF research teams, participants will explore sensory ways of knowing the tree species planted within the site’s micro-forest. Participants will be invited to interpret sounds, images, textures, movements and other stimuli associated with tree and animal activity, leaves, bark and birdsong. These multi-sensory interpretations will be woven together to create hand-drawn scores and audiovisual forms of the sonic kinesthetic experience. The workshop will take place at a research site on the campus that features 239 trees representing the biodiversity found in local wild spaces. The participants' tree-specific explorations will generate embodied-sensory data to be recorded and integrated into the tree species database being developed by the Concordia team. We see this as the beginning of a long-term international collaboration, evolving alongside the maturing campus trees, which infuses sensory knowledge into the growing body of research and tree-planting initiatives at Concordia, across Montreal and beyond.
Keywords: trees, forests, sound, movement, drawing,
[Loyola campus]