PRACTICES OF SEEING
SITUATED PRACTICE CONCEIVED BY OLGA DE SOTO
Practices of Seeing is an exploratory and situated practice conceived by Olga de Soto, based on the verbs of vision, while including an auditive dimension. It explores visual perception and how the intention present in the gaze can take us from simple vision to observation. The practice of walking and displacement is also central to this process of reflection. Under the form of walkabouts sessions in urban, natural or transitional environments, it invites to observe the traces and imprints present in the city. This exploration includes monuments and buildings that have been transformed or abandoned over the years and unusual objects that can be found along the way. It allows us to forge links between the past, the present and a projection. Rather than restraining itself to the central areas of cities, Practices of Seeing looks at the peripheries and adjacent spaces. It seeks to explore the frontiers of urbanity, where landscapes are transformed, nature invites itself timidly, encounters an agricultural gesture or manifests itself vividly. In this spirit of exploration, the walk can deploy so as to leave the city, ending in moments of contemplation, exchange or writing on the banks of a river, in a park, a field or a surrounding forest. Practices of Seeing is a holistic project that looks at the histories of the city, its buildings and spaces and the anthropological and poetic dimension of the urban and non-urban environment, including the beings that inhabit it, both human and non-human.
Detailed protocol: to be developed and adapted depending on the location
Premiere:
Festival Neuf Neuf, Rieux-Volvestre, FR (2024)
Prefigurations:
IMAGINE Project, CN D, Pantin (2018)
Mille Plateaux – CCN La Rochelle / Invité·e mystère, La Rochelle (2022)
PREAC 2023 / Récits des corps, récits des mots, (auto)biographies et (auto)fictions, ICI – CCN de Montpellier, Montpellier (2023).
Practices of Seeing, scouting and walkabout, PREAC - ICI CCN Montpellier, Marc 2023
© Olga de Soto