INTRODUCTION 

As an artist, I rely on investigation and references to sustain my work, often basing my pieces on personal experiences. I have witnessed how my father battles the effects of macular degeneration and the progression of this disease. His condition has made me question the importance of vision and how it shapes our experiences. My father’s process of facing the imminent loss of sight encouraged me to find subtle and alternative ways to experience an art piece. I challenged myself to investigate and create synesthetic experiences in an attempt to beautify my understanding of the process of the disease.

How can we create synesthetic experiences that instantly appeal to intuition and heighten the other senses, changing the hierarchy of vision as the dominant sense? Is the fundamental question behind my whole artistic research. During this two years exploration, I am overcoming the barrier of visual deprivation taking into consideration acoustic stimuli, touch, and emotional responses to the lack of clear images.I address Scenography as a possibility to rehearse different interactions with spectators in their seeking to “see”. Through my installations, I want to challenge them to enhance their other senses, placing the sight as not dominant.

In this research document, you will find how analyzing behaviors in a specific space such as botanical gardens and representing them as if they where my laboratory, help me as an excuse to create a route throughout the mixing senses.

I illustrated my research document by creating these maps in a way to guide you as a reader through my artistic process. Maps ideally allow you to make the connections of the concepts I introduce more easily. It is a more intimate way of following my thought process throughout the making of this research. It also allows you to interact more freely with my research, transitioning from one concept to another, establishing the connections between concepts as you go. That is why there is a general map as a guide for the whole research document. For some maps however, there are instructions that you need to follow in order to interact independently with them.