Understanding Through Encountering Place

Abstract

The ambition to understand place is a grand ambition, and one that requires us to embrace ‘place’ as the complex socio-cultural, geospatial and temporal entity that it is. Between 2009 and 2011 an interdisciplinary community of researchers embraced the challenge of understanding place through a deep encounter with one place, the Western District of Victoria, Australia. They did this through a collaborative inquiry known as The Stony Rises Project. This project brought together researchers from the sciences, arts and humanities and resulted in touring exhibition featuring the work of 10 artists and designers, and a book Designing Place: An Archeology of the Western District which included all 17 project participants. Key to the methodology of the inquiry was an ‘artist camp’ a traditional method of situated inquiry. This was a four day situated exploration undertaken in April 2009. This chapter discusses the design of this camp and how the way in which a series of experiences were designed to enable the participant researchers to develop a deep understanding of this place through an encounter with it.