Seminar moderators Allison Stegner and Yasaman Sheri reflect on the pathways, pitfalls and rewards of collectively learning to sense differently.

How can we adapt our ways of sensing to become better co-inhabitants of planet Earth? Looking back at their seminar that took place during The Shape of a Practice, biologist Allison Stegner and researcher-design director Yasaman Sheri share their thoughts on sensing and sense-making in the Anthropocene. Sensing is a multifaceted problem that not only consists of the challenge to grasp and measure the scale of anthropogenic changes in the earth system, but also alludes to the challenge of opening up to non-anthropocentric ways of sensing the world in order to become relatable beings amongst others. Stegner and Sheri ask, what practices, technologies, and self-chosen affiliations could allow us to get “contaminated” productively by the perspectives of other living entities?