workshop- book
AYA
AYA is a conceptual experiment on interspecific empathy
AYA
Experimental Education Protocol- Salzburg
2022
The experiment is realised as a part of Angelo Plassas' fourth edition of the Experimental Education Protocol, named "Mandrake." It is documented and published as the fourth volume of the Experimental Education Protocol book series.
The aim of this experiment is to challenge conventional instruction and form a series of workshops based on spontaneous communication between teachers and students. The fourth edition of the Experimental Education Protocol took place in Salzburg as part of the Summer Academy and explored the properties of the mandrake plant and beyond, serving as a bridge between aspects of nature and aspects of the self.
In Turkish, the word "aya" refers to both the palm of the hand and the blade of a leaf.
The work draws inspiration from this intersection to think about the complexity of life force in leaves and to experiment with interspecies palm reading.
The creature has a co-destiny, its fortune is neither totally anthropical nor botanical, but somewhere in between.
By reading the "fortunes" of hybrid creatures that are part plant and part human, the experiment declares a new collective body and a shared skin, and fosters ecological integrity between radically different bodies.
The work consists of two parts. The first part of the experiment involves pushing the participants to expand their human-centric intellect and speculate on the "fortunes" of the semi-plant creatures.
The second part involved participants scanning their leaves and reflecting on the absurdity of human-centric systems that categorize every other living and non-living creature as a source of consumption.
By blurring the boundaries of our form of being in the "Dark Ecology," the experiment questions the new ways to construct and deconstruct our common space for the family of things.