Clare Jonas is currently a postdoctoral research fellow in psychology at the University of East London, where she does research on synaesthesia (a harmless neurological condition in which the senses become tangled together), multisensory perception, mental imagery and how people think about numbers and mathematics. Previously Claire did a PhD at the University of Sussex and then worked as a teaching fellow at the University of St Andrews. In her spare time, Claire does lot of knitting and sewing and a little creative writing.
2 Minute Interview:
How does your workshop relate to being in the NOW?
Exploring what you can sense in the world around you is a great way to bring your attention and enjoyment to the present time and place – and personally I find it’s a great way to calm down if I’m worried or stressed out.
What are you most looking forward to doing within your slot at NOW?
I’ve explored these themes with my students before and I really enjoy how many different ways of experiencing the world people have, because it opens my eyes to the ways in which we are similar to and different from each other.
Any tips on how the audience can most benefit from your workshop?
Most people don’t normally think about the world in the way that I will be encouraging you to, so be curious and open-minded.
At Deptford Lounge:
‘What would our ideal Deptford look, taste, smell, feel and sound like?’
Participants in this session will begin by exploring what is coming in through the individual senses of sight, sound, touch and smell, and thinking about how they differ. Next, we’ll talk about how information can be matched across the senses – for example, would a high-pitched sound be yellow or purple if it had a colour, or does a sharp object make you think of the smell of bread or the smell of lemons? Using these associations between the senses, we will explore what Deptford would be like if it smelled how it looked, or felt like what it sounds like, and finally try to redesign Deptford so that it is pleasing to all the senses.