In response to the growing interest in interdependence and multispecies thinking within the arts, this proposal explores how embodied practices can help bridge the gap between intellect and lived experience. Rooted in ecofeminist perspectives, this pedagogical project proposes the horticultural techniques of grafting and pruning as epistemological tools1 to rethink how knowledge is produced, shared, and valued in learning contexts.
Grafting inserts a fresh sprout into a grown tree, symbolising the integration of new possibilities into existing structures. It relies on the tree’s agency, as the host may accept or reject the incorporation. Pruning, in contrast, intentionally removes excess to foster resilience or productivity. These horticultural gestures can serve as tools to reconsider artistic practice itself -trimming away what no longer serves, while cultivating new habits and approaches that open pathways for art to evolve beyond familiar patterns. As Agustín Pérez Rubio suggests: “How can humanise history anew, if not with imagination and rewriting strategies that advocate letting the imagination run free and creating grafts, or cutting short the future of the story so far told?” (Es Baluard Museum, 2023).
Glass Houses and Soft Stones reimagines the art academy -particularly KASK & Conservatorium- as a space where earth-bound wisdom, practised through grafting and pruning, cultivates embodied and relational approaches to knowledge. This pedagogical project explores these horticultural techniques as both metaphors and hands-on tools for experiential learning in collaboration with Ghent’s ancient fruit trees, positioning these tools as catalysts for scholars to engage with embodied knowledge, fostering interconnected thinking and deeper relationships with nonhuman life. Importantly, the project offers value not only for art students but also for teaching artists, providing pedagogical tools and methodologies that can inform their teaching strategies, thereby contributing to innovation in arts education.
Over the course of a year, participants -including students and teachers- will take part in workshops on tree care that introduce tactile, embodied, and multisensory practices, such as grafting, pruning, reflective observation, and collaborative care of living systems. The innovative educational project targets those departments that traditionally privilege a single sense: vision in photography and film, and hearing in musicology. These embodied practices encourage participants to develop more holistic approaches, expanding their approaches to tactile knowledge. Through these hands-on workshops, scholars can transform their understanding of pedagogy, discovering how land-based, experiential approaches to these techniques can be incorporated into teaching and creative processes alike.
The course in tree care will be integrated into existing classes in the departments of photography, film, and musicology and will unfold in four units of content, integrating agricultural perspectives into arts education. Engaging guest lecturers from Pomko4 (Dieter Dewitte) and the Groendienst of Ghent alongside scholars and the traditional fruit trees. This project aspires to reshape academic spaces by taking action from the garden. Hyphae-ing connections between the work in the gardens and in the arts, I will collaborate with photographer and visual researcher Patricia Kühfuss as a guest lecturer. With her expertise in mind-mapping and collaborative visual methods, we will create tailored exercises to root the embodied learning developed in the gardens within diverse disciplines across the departments.
Practising photography, film, or music with a focus on bodily perception has the potential to unsettle habitual modes of observation and production -eyes, ears-, fostering an awareness of the body as an active site of knowledge. Similarly, learning from the cycles and care of trees reframes scholarship itself as a form of cultivation of a slower timing and non-linearity. The aim is to humanise ourselves by acknowledging the physical dimension of our being, paying special attention to the sense of touch: its capacities, its limits, and its entanglement with ecological systems. The insights emerging from these arboricultural and embodied practices will be shared at the Green Office of Ghent University.
