Notes: The work arising within the Open Space Laboratory has a long-lasting character, with various groups of people and more-than-humans being able to enter it. It has the character of an open workshop – an event – testing (non)knowledge. The OSL framework represents an open process of embodied learning.

*All the works are produced in a small group together with our children (Váva 8. years & Elza 3. years) within the SWA curriculum.

photo Sea-Water Amplification (SWA) Atlantic Ocean Azores 2025

Feelings are skills. Skills are the abilities of action and perception of an entire organic being located in a richly structured environment. Skills appear during the interaction with and within worlds. Children or people in general learn to understand how they move in places. Skills have a special relationship with place.

photo Sea-Water Amplification (SWA) Atlantic Ocean Azores 2025

The development and subsequent exploration of the Vessel, for the short distances model brings us to continue our conversation with materials and others. Materials are always more-than-just materials. They are still alive, they evolve and they are part of our lives and we can be created together because of that. Together we express ourselves with volatility, we all pass through each other and together.

photo Sea-Water Amplification (SWA) Atlantic Ocean Azores 2025

This work and form of conversation is essential for the reformulation of the relationships between people and more-than-people. It is part of the process of learning to live differently. Living differently is essential so that one can think differently. In any work that arises in collaboration with children, we explore the boundaries of what conversation is.

photo Sea-Water Amplification (SWA) Atlantic Ocean Azores 2025

Children are extremely practical in this sense. This is a great advantage because they describe things as they are. For example:

It’s a simple vessel.

A sea bike.

That’s all I have to say.

They’re not unnecessarily sentimental. They don’t waste words (it depends on when). It’s as if their language touches an indescribable reality. Their language also depends on ignorance, but it will lead us to where we can recognize, for example, the Vessel, for the short distances that remained hidden in the material. Perhaps it is a language in some sense absolute. This means that words can change us in some sense.

photo Sea-Water Amplification (SWA) Atlantic Ocean Azores 2025

Interaction with the ocean

Another plane that offers itself is the plane of interaction. Interaction with the ocean. This interaction is also a form of conversation. It asks us to pay attention to different meanings and in different situations in which we find ourselves.

photo Sea-Water Amplification (SWA) Atlantic Ocean Azores 2025

Talking to the ocean demands recognition that human agency is always part of a larger network of relationships in which both human and non-human beings perform different forms of agency.

Looking at interaction with the ocean as a set of conversations can have normative meaning and change people’s attitudes.

Question: How can art make sense in interspecies relationships?