The workshop titled The Body and the Site: scores for being with(in) took place on 29th of April 2026 in the frame of a seminar fieldtrip organised by Debjani Bhattacharyya, UZH Zürich. It was part of a variety of workshop and interventions within this fieldtrip lead by various practitioners who brought in their specific expertise and interests. For this one, we – facilitator Mira Hirtz together with the participating students and project collaborator – focused on sensorial and performative tools that enable the shift from reading a landscape using maps and thus being an external, towards being situated within the landscape itself. We explored what kind of mapping can be created by means of our human senses and bodily experiences. Using movement, sensorial and performative scores we dedicated this April morning to a specific river site: the Lauteracher sand plates at the river Ache in the city of Bregenz, Austria. 

 

The workshop took as a starting point the idea that performative means are offering knowledge valuable to understanding river landscapes. Within the setting of a university seminar, we might use maps, text sources and discourse to understand what a river is, whereas on a fieldtrip our senses play a vital role in collecting data. By using touch, closed eyes explorations as well as looking at the river site as a theatre stage for different actors, the workshop served to explore these human senses and means of perception themselves. They filter the way we see the world and thus shape our subjective as well as objective knowledge systems.

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The Body and the Site: scores for being with(in), workshop lead by Mira Hirtz on 29th of April 2026 in the frame of a seminar fieldtrip orgaised by Debjani Bhattacharyya, UZH Zürich

 

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Contributors:

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Participants: students of the seminar, Debjani Bhattacharyya, Martina Huber Marthaler, Ishita Chakraborty 

Institution: UZH Zürich

Organisation fieldtrip: Martina Huber Marthaler and Debjani Bhattacharyya

Facilitator: Mira Hirtz ​

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Mira Hirtz is a curator, multi-media artist and movement practitioner who explores the intersections of art, health, ecology and science. Her work takes many different formats, from exhibitions to performances and workshops. Mira’s thinking and doing is informed by embodied practices and concepts of care and access. As a curator, she also wonders about how global and local, as well as human and non-human narratives come together. She graduated from the MFA Creative Practice in somatic dance at Trinity Laban Conservatoire London and from the MA art research at University of Art and Design Karlsruhe. Mira co-curated the touring exhibition “Critical Zones. In Search of a Common Ground”, initiated by the ZKM | Karlsruhe and the Goethe-Institut South Asia. Currently, she curates various programs for ZKM | Karlsruhe and is furthermore a member of the collective “Beyond Geographies” which initiated the project “River Landscapes: A New Glossary”.