2025
ACTIVATING ENVIRONMENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS
Latest workshops: Friday 4 July and Sunday 6 July 2025
Arc’Teryx Alpine Academy, Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, FRANCE
Info link here
The Object is the Experience
This workshop programme invites you on a sensory adventure to open new perspectives on the alpine environment. Walking together with the rivers, rocks and forest of the Mont-Blanc massif you will experience practices of deep listening, slow walking, poetic language, mindful movement and meditation. We will use these techniques to develop a ‘being-with’ and physical connection to the living mountain.
WORKSHOP COMMENTS
“Wow! Thank you. In all my days in the mountains I have never experienced a day like this! To be slow and feel the nature is really powerful … everyone needs to do this!”
“I have had a difficult time recently, but now I feel calm.”
“Thank you so much for such a wonderful experience – I remember going home that day feeling like my brain was much slower than ever before … feeling that much stillness and calm is a rare and very welcome experience. I’m trying to remember it less and make it more of an instinct to be more present – not just when I’m in nature, but also during just the day to day.”
“It was great meeting you and exploring a new way of staying in nature.”
“I realise how difficult it is to slow down and focus on the small stuff … I think I need to do this every day!”
“Thank you for your generous presence throughout the workshop … a truly inspiring and meaningful experience.”
WORKSHOP PROGRAMMES 2005-2024
IMMATERIAL FIELDS
A single activity from the Immaterial Fields workshop also took place at Moor House scientific field station, North Pennines, UK – as part of Laura Harrington’s collaborative Fieldworking artist camp in 2019.
Developed and led by artist Luce Choules, Immaterial Fields was a workshop programme exploring gravity, motion and stillness. The methods used are the culmination of the artist’s 10-year enquiry into The Body Holding Space.
WORKSHOP COMMENTS
“How nice to spend so much time with the mountain… and in a way I never imagined was possible.”
“Enjoyed reflecting on the time in Chamonix, how lovely that was and so influential for me.”
“Interesting dynamics that promote deep listening and closer relationship of a group … a safe environment to express freely, dissolve in the landscape and in the words of others.”
“I wanted to write [to you] about the exercise – I was so angry doing it. But it made miracles :) I have been in this closed circle of depression for six years, two years of therapy – but suddenly that exercise helped me to break free.”
“To listen. Birds, voices from the distance, a machine, insects. A bell telling me, framing the time that is passing by … The discomfort of my body, the resistance of my mind, the perception of this dark space – sometimes expanded, sometimes reduced … Perceiving, being present, becoming sensitive to what is there, and in us.”
“I found the whole process of slowing down so difficult!”
“Thank you again for the workshop, I found it to be a really thought-provoking experience. The listening exercise in particular was very meditative, and I found that writing directly after that allowed me to collect my thoughts very easily and the writing I did then I was very pleased with.”
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THE FIELD BEYOND WORK
Practicing Passivity
Developed and led by artist Luce Choules, this one-to-one workshop opens up a discussion on ‘field’ and the foregrounding of artistic processes over artwork production.
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THE TRANSPORTED BODY
The Transported Body, Methods for states of mind (running time 40sec). 2020 – ongoing
The Transported Body is a remote workshop programme developed by artist Luce Choules in collaboration with others. These conceptual performance methods use suspension, delay and consequence to explore states of mind.
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OTHER ACTIVITIES
Individuals and groups:
For many years, Choules has led workshops across art and geography that deal with fieldwork, survey, mapping, documentation and writing. These have taken place with individuals and groups in a range of indoor and outdoor environments. Organisations include: Hangar (Barcelona), Museu Molí Paperer de Capellades (Barcelona); The Camden Centre (London); UAL Central St Martins (London); Royal Holloway University of London, Centre for the GeoHumanities (London); Cambridge Artworks (Cambridge); London Art Fair and Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art (London); Turner Contemporary (Margate); Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust (Shropshire); National Portrait Gallery (London); National Maritime Museum – Royal Museums Greenwich (London); Arts Catalyst (London); Museum of London; University of Brighton; Brunei Gallery, SOAS (London); ICA (London); and the Royal Geographical Society (London).
RGS exhibition / RGS annual conference:
RGS Explore:
Choules previously coordinated workshop activities at the Royal Geographical Society for over a decade as part of the annual Explore: expedition and fieldwork planning event, held at the Society’s headquarters in London, UK. Since stepping down in 2019 to focus activities in their practice, other TSOEG artists now organise variations on the Artists in the Field workshops – more details of Explore can be found here.
Image credit: RGS-IBG (Explore 2019)
Luce Choules 