Empathy Tree
Vidmina Stasiulyte (Swedish School of Textiles, Borås), Kim Kullman (Department of Geography, Open University, London)
What if we could cultivate our empathic abilities by sensing like a tree?
Empathy tree is a family heirloom, consisting of jewellery and memories, which are passed from one generation to another. It invites families to care for a tree and also to collect and share ‘tree stories’ to remind each other of the intertwined character of the personal and environmental.
Empathy tree is a bio-sensing device that invites the user to feel the world through a tree and to become aware of the profound involvement of humans and nonhumans. It can be placed anywhere on the body, where it produces haptic and sonic effects from the electronic signals it receives from sensors attached to a single tree.