Embodied Mindful Sounds
Mindfulness, or being mindful, is all about connecting with our emotions, and being more present in the moment. For my Young V&A Design Residency’, I explored mindfulness through the lens of design, in a series of creative workshops with young people in East London. The project lasted from January to August 2022 and involved collaboration with so many young people from both the borough of Tower Hamlets, and open days at the V&A.
Alongside the work I produced with young people over the residency, the time allowed me to explore and research as a designer and creative practitioner. The project culminated in a final exhibition at the V&A in July, however the project itself enlightened me to the need there is to diversify creative practice with young people.
Noise can be a barrier to mindfulness. In Tower Hamlets, a densely populated area in London, noise pollution is a constant problem. During my conversations with young people from the borough, they outlined how noise distracts from mindful listening, particularly while trying to take a mindful walk. I found that any perceived problems they had were not about the topic itself, but instead about access to the practice of being mindful.
Collaborative posters made with Youth Group in Tower Hamlets “What is mindful around us?”
I became increasingly interested in how we could abstract mindfulness into more tangible and accessible outputs for young people. The link between our surroundings and how we behave within ourselves was noted by mindfulness practitioners I had interviewed; and made me question the relationship we build with the things around us.
I created workshops that purposefully had no real problem to solve, rather created a space of exploration and experimentation of self- asking young people to create sculptures that reacted to words associated to mindfulness techniques and with connection to V&A objects I had selected.
From this, more in depth workshops were carried out, focusing on connection to place, objects and emotion within the local area of Tower Hamlets; you can read more about the Mindful Spaces workshop here.
Inspired by the work of Stephen Gill from the V&A photography archives, I wanted to understand how memory could be amalgamated with place. Gill does this so poetically: “I hope to encourage the spirit of the place to clamber aboard the images and be encapsulated in the film emulsion, like objects embedded in amber”.
The continuation of development that arised from working with the young people on the subject of mindfulness showed me that I had been looking at the wrong problem all along. Rather than education on the topic of mindfulness and mental wellbeing, it was access to being mindful that had presented itself as the real issue.
Tower Hamlets itself is the most densely populated borough in London, and so taking a ‘mindful walk’ was not as easy as anticipated. The new question to design for became:
“How might we reimagine mindful sounds that young people cannot access?”
Categorised 3 areas of mindful states to design for: taken from interviews with mindfulness practitioners and participatory work with young people.
By fusing the research I had discovered from my participatory workshops with young people that showcased the importance of forms as a conduit for emotion, I began to make links between mindful sounds in the area of Tower Hamlets to shapes and mindful states. Experiments in frequency, texture, negative space and collage.
The Mindful Sounds Toolkit
Through experimentation with objects that combined the young people’s 3D representations of mindful states with soundscapes from Tower Hamlets, I created a set of sculptures accompanied by soundscapes designed by sound artists Danny Jew. Danny used an algorithm to create unpredicted sequences of the sounds I recorded with the young people, resulting in mystical and mindful soundscapes. This synaesthetic approach, blending the senses usually associated with sound with vision, sparked conversations on how forms and textures can stimulate the emotions that are present when practising mindfulness.
Collaborative Mindful States
Embodied Mindful Sounds Showcase at the Victoria and Albert Museum July 2022
The toolkit was inspired by the research discovered during my Mindful spaces workshop in Poplar. It comprises of a workbook, three forms that correlate to the three mindful states, three soundscapes, a transparent card deck and transparent display box. The focus on transparency took inspiration from Fredun Shapur, a designer heavily featured in the Young V&A’s archives, which I luckily got to visit multiple times during my residency. His “See through puzzles” game inspired the ideas of layering memory and allowing the user agency when developing their own mindful sound journey.
Relaxed
Smooth. Linear. Gradual. “I look for longer sounds, ones that elongate with time, similar to the whirl of the wind” Deep blue. Breeze. Cool.
Present
Tapping. Rustling. Repetitive. Building attention. “Making me feel in the moment and aware of what is around me”. Leaves crunching. “Greens remind me to feel present in nature”.
Clear
Slow. Flowing. Water. Undulating. Calm. The dappled light reflecting on water. Shiny surfaces. “Reflective surfaces remind me of feeling clear in my mind”. Reflections.
The activity allows users to listen to mindful soundscapes, embark on a mindful journey, and reimagine sound through shapes and forms learnt along the way.
The activity is based on a methodology of reflection and repetition. Design education is focused on solutions, approaching huge scale problems that we face in the world today. This can be stressful and induce a fear of failure, creating feelings of anxiety and impostor syndrome.
The mindful sounds activity positions process in a new way, by creating a reassuring method that is repetitive, based on research outlining that routine and ritual leads to more mindful states. This process creates a feeling of safety for the young users, and celebrates the outcome being learnt rather than a result.
