Experiencing Arkenwalk – Public art in the landscape

2021. Master students’ project from Spatial Designs and Society, RUC

How do visitors experience ARKENWALK and how does the perception of public art contribute to this?

The intention of this report is to give voice to the visitors of ARKENWALK by investigating their experience, more specifically how the public art shapes the experience of this trail. When we refer to the experience of a place, we focus on urban places experienced by visitors as temporary walkers. Thus, we understand the experience of the visitors as a result of the specific bodily encounters with the designed environment. How people experience places will be related to how their senses construct the reality of the place, through the combination of different senses.

We have examined these experiences qualitatively by observing and being in the field, through vision recordings using an eye-tracking technology, and with semi-structured interviews with first-time visitors of the trail. Acknowledging that a solely sense cannot be isolated, we instead offer an account of the potentials of a special focus towards the vision within an emplaced, bodily experience fed by the wholeness of the place. Using gathered data, our analysis explores the act of seeing through the eyes of the visitors.