HENRY MOORE HOUSE INTERNSHIP
The experience of teaching workshops at the Henry Moore House was deeply enriching for many reasons. First, working collaboratively with my peers to design a shared artistic activity allowed me to understand the complexity and richness of the planning process.
The coordination of ideas, the logistical preparation, and the strategic structure resembled a theatrical performance in which each participant takes on an essential role within a common choreography.
The workshop, titled “Re-creating Reality,” was inspired by one of the fundamental principles of Henry Moore’s thought: abstraction as a way to reveal the volumetric and sensory essence of an object beyond its mere appearance. Translating that idea into a hands-on dynamic for participants was a fascinating challenge.
It led us to reflect on how Moore understood sculpture as a physical, tactile, and perceptual experience, and how we could convey that sensitivity to a diverse audience. Guiding participants through this process was an invaluable pedagogical lesson.
We encouraged them to let go of the notion of a “replica” or “perfect result” and to focus instead on the experience of making — on the discovery that occurs when material and intuition engage in dialogue without the demand for control.
I found it especially interesting to observe how adults tended to seek precision and formal correctness, while children, on the other hand, allowed themselves to be guided by emotion and curiosity in the moment.
This difference revealed something that deeply resonates with my own artistic practice: freedom and authenticity emerge when one renounces perfection and trusts the process. The activity not only allowed me to share knowledge but also to rethink my own approach to teaching and creation. I confirmed that, just as in my work with mycelium, the most valuable outcomes occur when the result stops being the main goal and the process becomes a shared space for learning. In that sense, the experience at the Henry Moore House was more than a pedagogical exercise — it was a reaffirmation of my artistic ethics, grounded in care, collaboration, and open exploration. Without a doubt, it is an experience I wish to replicate in the future, whether as a tutor or as an artist-educator, because it allowed me to understand that teaching art is not about transmitting formulas but about facilitating experiences of connection between body, material, and thought — exactly as Moore did, and as I strive to do in my own contemporary practice with living materials.
I was surprised by the students’ curiosity and interest in a process that, at first glance, might seem unrelated to drawing, yet actually shares with it the same attention to observation, patience, and sensitivity toward material. Beyond the attention the talk received, what was most valuable to me was the opportunity to teach and share knowledge. I discovered that transmitting a living experience has a transformative power — both for the listener and for the one who shares it. I understood that teaching — like art — is an act of care: it involves listening, accompanying, and creating the conditions for something to grow in another. That experience made me recognize the affinity between the mycelial network and the human network that forms through teaching.
Just as mycelium connects diverse organisms to sustain the life of a forest, the conversation with the students became a space of symbolic connection — a transfer of energy and thought that, though fleeting, may carry lasting resonance.
The value of that experience lay in realizing that I cannot control whether any of them will continue exploring work with fungi or living materials, but I can plant an idea: that art can be a practice of awareness, a more attentive way of relating to oneself and to the environment. I firmly believe that by awakening that awareness in others, one contributes — even on a small scale — to a collective change, just as a mycelial network transforms the soil it inhabits. In that sense, the talk at Middlesex was not merely a pedagogical activity, but a natural extension of the EN ÕVUM project — an exercise in connection, transmission, and shared growth.
Teaching became another way of making art: a living practice in which words temporarily replaced sculpture, yet preserved its essential purpose — to nurture empathy, reflection, and the possibility of a more conscious world through art.
