Labyrinth of the senses & health

On 27 September 2019, after two years of designing and building, the “Labyrinth of the Senses” (LotS) was unveiled during the opening of the Uitfestival Almere. LotS is a travelling art object in the form of a “soap bubble labyrinth” in which visitors experience through their senses that making conscious choices can contribute to their perceived health and happiness. In LotS you experience, feel, see, hear, smell and taste the issues of your lifestyle. The experience bubble smell [Scent] lets you smell stories from all over the world. In colour [Colour], you learn to create a composition playfully, causing the whole space to change colour, and how you can influence your emotion. The “Food Art project” in taste [Taste] shows our desire to stay healthy and young. In sound [Sound] you completely relax and in feeling [Touch] you can touch, and you are touched. And in the last bubble about the future [Next Senses] you explore the unknown. In five short films about intimate technology, you are referred to systems that colonize our body, influence our behaviour and determine our identity.

Various events took place in the run-up to the unveiling:

• On 10 June 2019 the SensesLab of CitySenses was opened on the beach of Almere. This was a sneak preview of the Labyrinth of the Senses. Until the unveiling, the artists used this Lab as an outdoor laboratory to test their experience rooms.
• In the summer of 2018 CitySenses was at the Floriade festival with the “apples of Snow White”. These special apples were injected by an artist with unknown substances and were accompanied by a story. The apple-performance was a seductive invitation to use your senses differently and stimulated you to think about food processing and choices for your health.
• In September 2018, the pop-up “Incognito” was shown during the Vegetable Soup Festival. Attendees were invited to briefly become “Incognito” in a cocoon from recycled, sustainable materials made by artist Mira Ticheler. Inside the cocoon, participants could enjoy a musical composition by the health care pianist Mark Kirkenier from Almere to briefly come to their senses.

Active Health Foundation contributed to this project through a financial donation.