The Hands-On Story
About the Project
For the undergraduate course LITT242 Environmental Communication at Krea University taught by Joya John, the class curated an exhibition titled ‘Aftermath: The , curated by the students of LITT242 Environmental Communication, captured the themes of changing nature, places, and people’s histories of the Anthropocene. As a curator, my exhibit, “Hands-On Story,” presented an audio visual narrative inviting the audience to contemplate the changing relationship between nature and human intimacy. The exhibit unfolded through illustrations showcasing hands’ continuously adapting form and function in the Anthropocene, along with an audio poetry walkthrough.
The Anthropocene is defined by the unparalleled influence of human activities as the dominant force in shaping the Earth’s environment. This has resulted in the emergence of multifaceted versions of a complex past, present, and future.
The “Hands-on Story” uncovers a version of this complex timeline. Starting from handprints as the earliest form of art, progressing to present-day digital intimacies augmented by the COVID pandemic, and finally examining the future consequences of technology on the anatomical transformations of the hand as the vital force of our life.
The narrative also displays the irony that while rock art is the oldest proof of artistic expression, AI art struggles to generate lifelike hands in 2023.
The intention behind crafting this timeline is to demonstrate the role of the audiovisual storytelling in environmental communication.
Through the visual exhibits and an audio poetry walkthrough, immersive storytelling has the potential to heighten the interactive experience, fostering imaginative environmental communication in my exhibit. This distinction is one of the ways in which environmental crisis can be communicated, the central argument of my final project.
Furthermore, by encouraging the audience to touch the artwork physically, I aimed to critique the “please do not touch” signs in galleries & art museums and encourage tactile visual exhibits. So the title is really a pun!
The result was a playful and personal engagement of the audience with art pieces. The ‘hands-on’ approach quite literally transformed the exhibit setting from the impersonal atmosphere of traditional art galleries into a more intimate space. Intimacy is at the heart of my work because ultimately, this artwork is a way for me to represent the human intimacy of hands, its form and function in the evolving relationship of humans and nature in the Anthropocene.
You can find the project documentation below.