SENSING WORKSHOPS
Exploring smell and touch with students, pupils and artists
Between 2024 and 2026, MUELLER-DIVJAK conducted a series of SENSING WORKSHOPS in Southeast Asia. These took place in rural schools with pupils, at urban universities, in museums, and at art festivals with artists from Myanmar and across the ASEAN region, as well as with members of the SLS Advisory Board – at the BACC Bangkok Art and Cultural Center and additionally with locals and expats at the Austrian Embassy in Bangkok.
In the workshops, participants engaged with specific scents specially composed by MUELLER-DIVJAK and explored how tactile and auditory sensory experiences help us feel connected to the world around us and within us.
They also shared their favorite everyday scents: from moke flowers to dried fish, fresh boilded rice, their grandmother’s hair, soccer balls, new clothes, fabric softeners, gasoline, various fruits, money, baby powder, herbal inhalers, rain after a hot day – all the way to the scent of their own skin after a good nap.
When asked how it feels to walk barefoot, most participants said they love it and described their favorite surfaces: soft grass, shallow water, powdery sand, flowers, wooden floors, silk carpets, and even slime. One thing stood out in particular: warmth is important. Everyone agreed that the ground beneath their feet should feel warm.
The workshops gave us insights into how sensory experiences are often shaped by culture and environment. They reminded us that a scenography for embodied learning must take into account many levels of perception.
All the different workshops were filled with moments of joyful exchange and mutual learning.
SENSING WORKSHOPS
These sensory workshops, developed by MUELLER-DIVJAK, invite participants of all ages to experience relational thinking and systemic awareness through smell, touch and sound.
At interactive stations, participants explore, for example, natural and artificial materials as well as art works with their eyes closed; follow scents and sounds specially created by the artist duo MUELLER-DIVJAK (Jeanette Mueller and Paul Divjak) to stimulate the imagination or unlock emotional pathways; or use seeds to visualize connections within everyday systems. Each workshop opens up space for reflection: How can we perceive our interconnectedness and, through this, our mutual interdependence and embeddedness? How do we influence (living) systems? And how can we cope with all the influences that we are exposed to?
These inclusive and playful workshops have already been implemented with various age groups and cultures – from school classes and universities in Austria and Southeast Asia to adult learners in European research contexts and ASEAN art scenes. Rather than imparting facts, they invite physical exploration and offer a sensory approach to complexity, towards an embodied awareness of living systems.
