Supersensory Encounters: Sonic Drone Bath and Reading session at Supernormal Festival, Braziers Park, Oxfordshire. Summer 2017.

Supernormal Super Sensory Summer School Sanctuary [SSSSS] invited festival-goers to a host of sensory encounters that drew inspiration from Braziers Park School of Integrative Social Research, the resident community of the site, and 20th century counterculture. With Charlie Fox, Fritha Jenkins, Annebella Pollen, Chris Hind, Stephanie moran, and the Anti-University.

 

Stephanie Moran lead explorations into 70’s encounter groups as UnSafe Spaces of En-counter Culture. In an experiential reading session she introduced the history of encounter groups, their use as therapeutic, communitarian and pedagogical spaces, and their potential for radical decolonization through a cut-up narrative. With sonic drone bath by musician Chris Hind. This was followed by an immersive, experimental encounter session.

 

 

Within the Sanctuary SSSSS staged a number of other encounters. Haven was Counterproductions’ one-person semi-anechoic chamber in which an individual could sit and meditate or even scream, using the enclosed space as a mobile primal asylum space. Fritha Jenkins' rain pools appeared around the camp, offering space for reflection and play. Throughout the festival, visitors were invited to bring finished designs and costumes or join in the decoration of tents, tarps and garments using Super Sensory Shape Sets inspired by 20th century interwar esoteric group, the Kibbo Kift.

 

The shapeshifting encampment, constructed together, offered a temporary sanctuary or alternative space for encounter - with material, the group, and with ecocentric thought - exploring collective and individual structures.