‘Sensoria, The Art & Science of Our Senses’ Navigating through the world of human senses with Sensoria, a polysensory exhibition at CCA Laznia.

The newest CCA LAZNIA exhibition ‘Sensoria. The Art & Science of Our Senses‘ is an art-scientific nod towards the remarkable human sensory world. It presents eight sensorially-engaged exhibits of nine artists who share an interdisciplinary approach to art and have been invited to present their works in new site-specific situations in CCA LAZNIA, Gdansk. The exhibition’s curator is Nina Czegledy. 

There are five basic human senses: touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste. As the promotional graphic of the exhibition shows, ‘Sensoria’ stimulates our ability to see, smell, hear, and taste, but also, to feel. Take a read, visit the exhibition, and begin an unforgettable cross-sensual journey through the human senses.

Gdansk & Toronto, an art-science intercultural collaboration 

The exhibition and accompanying events (performances and symposium) are part of an intercultural and cross-institutional collaboration between LAZNIA Centre for Contemporary Art (LCCA) and Sensorium: Centre for Digital Art and Technology at York University, Toronto. The exhibition is presented in two LCCA buildings: LAZNIA 1 and LAZNIA 2. These spaces showcase the work of nine artists from around the world: Guy van Belle, Karolina Hałatek, Csenge Kolozsvari, Hilda Kozari, Agnes Meyer-Brandis, Gayil Nalls, Raewyn Turner & Brian Harris, and Artur Żmijewski. 

‘Sensoria the Art and Science of Our Senses presents an intercontinental, cross-disciplinary, multisite collaboration. The Sensoria events including workshops, exhibitions, presentations and the symposium aim to provide consciousness-raising information through art’
– Nina Czegledy, the exhibition’s curator

LAZNIA 1 – can technology power senses? Nature, People & Technology

‘Sensoria’ as an interdisciplinary exhibition examines human sensory nature with a social, cultural, and scientific interpretive approach. For a long time, the senses were considered to be completely autonomous, independently functioning ‘perceptual modules’ in our body, but this approach is changing. Due to, for instance, the advancement of technology. Exhibits in LAZNIA 1 show this change; and include works by Raewyn Turner & Briand Harris, Agnes Meyer Brandis, Csenge Kolozsvari, and Artur Żmijewski. 

New Zealand-based artists Raewyn Turner & Brian Harris present ‘ReadReed’; this artwork has its roots in the mythological story of the discretion of Midas’s hairdresser. ‘ReedRead’ relates to data misinterpretation, amongst other topics. The viewer can see and listen to the work in the form of a video documenting and showing a fascinating process: the wind moving reeds which are cutting two diodes that are powered by an algorithm. Reeds swishing in the wind may be formed into letters and words. Some of them are legible and understandable and refer to digital capitalism. All are open to viewers’ interpretations. In this work, the visitors are also invited to put on, touch, feel and smell a vest that was immersed in the fragrance of saffron. 

Agnes Meyer Brandis shows part of the ‘One Tree ID’ and ‘Have a tea with a Tree’ exhibition, a Biochemical and Biopoetic Odour Communication Installation. The project ‘One Tree’ ID converts the ID of a tree into a perfume. The visitors can apply the tree-produced organic perfume on their body, and touch and smell it. The artist also enables a booking link to a personal video conference with trees. How about a chat with nature? Address for conference booking: www.teawithatree.com. 

Csenge Kolozsvari presents a delicate, soft, and gentle work entitled ‘Bodylandscapes.’ It is a single-channel video showing the fascial planes (connective tissues) of bodies. The artist presents them beyond human scales, inviting the viewer to see the tissues as constantly emerging and changing fields, and ‘the camera is a listening device for the softness of skin-talk.’* 

‘How we imagine our bodies seeps through our bodily fabrics, perceptions and sense-making processes, across lived encounters including the ways we speak, move, and feel-with other species’
– Nina Czegledy

Last but not least, Laznia 1 presents a movie by Artur Zmijewski called ‘Blindly.’ The Polish artist invited a group of visually impaired people to paint self-portraits and landscapes. Some of the volunteers were born with sight impairments, others became blind in their lifetime. The artworks are spontaneous and abstract, and the process of creation is the highlight of the film that the viewer can see and listen to. 

LAZNIA 2. A large-scale social and cultural focus on the human senses. People, Nature & the Future 

Sensors stimulate all human senses and invite the visitors to explore the accessible exhibits with at least one. LAZNIA 2 is the home of Karolina Hałatek, Gayil Nalls, Hilda Kozari, and Guy van Belle’s works that focuses on cultural, social, and natural aspects of the sensory world and the connections within it. 

Karolina Halatek, a well-known and awarded Polish artist, presents an exhibit called ‘Ascent.’ It is a large site-specific light installation whose creation was inspired by various archetypical associations – ‘from microscopic observations, the atmospheric phenomena of a whirlwind, or a spiritual epiphany.’ ‘Ascent,’ similarly to the other exhibits, offers a sensually-engaged experience. It creates a performative situation that invites the viewer to stand at the central point of the installation. The light and the fog create a monumental dynamic space in which the viewer can touch, smell, and see. 

The exhibition in LAZNIA to 2 also features an olfactory work of Gayil Nalls. The artist from New York City brought her ‘World Sensorium’ project which was officially part of New York City’s millennium event ‘Times Square 2000: The Global Celebration at the Crossroads of the World.’ The work is a large-scale, transdisciplinary, work ‘composed of botanical substances formulated by country population percentages into a single global essence.’ It is an olfactory social sculpture and a record of humanity that is integrated with nature. Every visitor of LCCA can smell the global essence.

Hilda Kozari’s multisensory installation is an interesting work that has its roots in a workshop that the artist coordinated with Emilia Leszkowicz at the Education Department of LAZNIA. The workshop with visually impaired participants focused on ‘triggering smell memories and discussions of the scents and the memories triggered by them.’ In LAZNIA’s space, the memories are presented in felt discs in various sizes in Braille. The viewer can smell and touch the installation, seeing it as a visually appealing and fascinating structure. Only visitors who know Braille understand the words. This way the installation invites visitors to rethink their perception of what is said to be ‘accessible’. 

Finally, on the opening day, Guy Van Belle in collaboration with Krzysztof Topolski and the Gdansk University Choir presented ‘Fanfara Gdansk,’ a musical performance open to the visitors and performers’ participation. Guy van Belle by this performance, aimed to create a situation that allows free interpretation of the sound score in real-time.

Human senses, the windows to the outer world

‘Sensoria the Art and Science of Our Senses aims to illuminate science through Art. It is not an educational project, however in all my curatorial projects I, with my collaborators, aim to exhibit artworks which are informative and accessible to the general public’
– Nina Czegledy

The newest CCA Laznia exhibition ‘Sensoria, The Art & Science of Our Senses’ is truly a sensorium for the mind. After leaving the building, and going outside, one is more fragile and gentle in one’s sense and is feeling the surrounding world more intensively, and in a deeper way. With its exhibits, ‘Sensoria’ shows the full complicated and beautiful human sensory range. Can exhibitions like ‘Sensoria’ help us understand the senses – and rethink their nature and environment?

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‘Sensoria, The Art & Science of Our Senses’

Exhibition: 16 September – 30 October 2022 

Places: Laznia 1 (Jaskółcza 1) and Laznia 2 (Strajku Dokerów 5), Gdańsk

Artists: Guy van Belle | Karolina Hałatek | Csenge Kolozsvari | Hilda Kozari | Agnes Meyer-Brandis | Gayil Nalls | Raewyn Turner i Brian Harris | Artur Żmijewski

Curator: Nina Czegledy.