What's On

Co-Curated by the Cultural Programme, Dr Mette Høeg, Dr Siân Grønlie and Unlimited

Conscious Perception Symposium Day

Part of the Adventures in Consciousness Season

Book Tickets

Friday 22 November

Adventures in Consciousness

Opening Times

3pm – 5.30pm

Venue

Sir Victor Blank Lecture Theatre, Weston Library, Broad Street, Oxford OX1 3BG

Tickets

Free entry, booking required

Please note: this event will be live-captioned. For more information, please email: culturalprogramme@humanities.ox.ac.uk

Ticket sales will close 3 hours before the event. There may be a limited number of tickets available on the door on a first come, first served basis.

Accessibility

Wheelchair Access
Captioned

Performances

Keynote speaker, Fiona MacPherson – We Cannot Know The Structure of Experience

“Join me at the Crossroads” – A Creative Conversation

Neuroinclusive guided meditation with Dr. Mette Leonard Høeg

Do we all see and perceive things differently? How can we be better at understanding how people see things differently?

We are used to thinking of diversity in terms of physical appearance and ability and assume that our perception functions the same as others’. But neuroscience tells us that no two brains are the same as are no two experiences of the world. The Conscious Perception Symposium Day invites you to take part in our exploration of the newest insights into, and the unresolved mysteries of, perception and neurodiversity. Together with a remarkable line-up of academics and artists we look into the differences in the ways we perceive and the profound implications for our behaviour, opinions and relations.

An afternoon of talks, creative conversation and a guided meditation.

PROGRAMME

Keynote Speaker, Professor Fiona MacPherson – We Cannot Know The Structure of Experience

Many researchers hold that the central way—perhaps the only way—to study the conscious nature of experiences is to study their structure. Claims about the structure of experience are supposed to be true of all experiences, for example, that all perceptual experiences represent space and time, and that all experiences of red are more similar to experiences of orange than to experiences of green. Fiona Macpherson (Director, Centre for the Study of Perceptual Experience, University of Glasgow) will present a variety of counter examples to extant structural claims.

“Join Me at the Crossroads” – A Creative Conversation

Author and Director Jo Verrent (We Are Unlimited) talks to Artist, Composer and Writer Nwando Ebizie about her work, multidisciplinary practice and process.

Nwando’s work challenges her audience to question their perceived realities through art personas, experimental theatre, neuroscience, music and African diasporic ritualistic dance. Carving out her own particular strand of Afrofuturism, she combines research into the neuroscience of perception (inspired by her own Neurodiversity) and an obsession with science fiction with a ritualistic live art practice.

Jo Verrent is Director of Unlimited, the world’s largest commissioning programme for disabled artists, working not just to fund disabled artists to create new artistic work but to get it seen, discussed and embedded within the cultural fabric of the UK.

Neuroinclusive guided meditation with Dr. Mette Leonard Høeg

Consciousness researcher and writer Dr. Mette Leonard Høeg talks about the importance of making mindfulness practice accessible to neurodiverse people and guides a meditation that welcomes all forms of neuro- and perceptually diversity.

Plan your visit

Address

Sir Victor Blank Lecture Theatre, Weston Library, Broad Street, Oxford OX1 3BG

Speakers

Professor Fiona Macpherson

Director, Centre for the Study of Perceptual Experience, University of Glasgow

Biography

Professor Fiona Macpherson is Professor of Philosophy and  Director of the Centre for the Study of Perceptual Experience at the University of Glasgow. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and member of Academia Europaea. She is president of the Briths Philosophyical Association and a member of the UKRI Creative Industries Advisory Group. Her research concerns the nature of consciousness, perception, introspection, imagination and the metaphysics of mind. She works in an interdisciplinary manner.

Jo Verrent

Director of Unlimited

Biography

Jo believes that ‘different’ is delicious not divergent. She works in arts & culture at strategic levels embedding the belief that diversity adds texture, turning policy into real action.

Jo is director of Unlimited, with a mission to commission extraordinary work from disabled artists until the whole of the cultural sector does. Funded by Arts Council England, Arts Council of Wales, Creative Scotland, Paul Hamlyn Foundation and the British Council, it commits for this work to change and challenge the world. 

Jo has a background as an artist, creating Take Me to Bed with Luke Pell, and founded Sync with Sarah Pickthall, playing at the intersection of disability and leadership.

Jo has won both Cosmopolitan’s woman of achievement award and her old village’s cup for making jam. Jo is a Clore Fellow.

Nwando Ebizie

Atelier Nwando

Biography

An unclassifiable polymath, British-Nigerian multidisciplinary artist Nwando creates Afrofuturist speculative fictions and alternate realities at the intersection of live art, experimental music and multi-sensory installations.

She proposes new myths, rituals and provocations for perceptual change, radical care and transformation of the self and community, drawing from science fiction, Black Atlantic ritual cultures, biophilia, neuroscience, her own neurodivergency and Nigerian heritage.

Nwando’s critically-acclaimed works include the multimedia installation Distorted Constellations, left-field pop persona Lady Vendredi (a blaxploitation heroine from another dimension) and ecstatic operatic experience Hildegard: Visions.

She has been commissioned by and has had her works shown across the UK and internationally, including the Barbican, Brighton Festival, Science Gallery Melbourne, Hepworth Museum, Institute of Contemporary Arts, Southbank Centre, BALTIC, Site Gallery, Humber Street Gallery, Rio de Janeiro’s Tempo Festival, London Sinfonietta, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and Zurich’s Blok.

As a composer and musician, she recently released a new single ‘I Seduce’ taken from her debut album The Swan – a work of sonic fiction into the imagined world of a matriarchal community – which comes out in Summer 2022 on Matthew Herbert’s Accidental Records.

Dr Mette Leonard Høeg

Academic Visitor at the Uehiro Oxford Institute, University of Oxford, and Research Fellow at the Interacting Minds Centre, Aarhus University

Biography

Dr Mette Leonard Høeg

Dr Mette Leonard Høeg is an Academic Visitor at the Uehiro Oxford Institute, University of Oxford, and Research Fellow at the Interacting Minds Centre, Aarhus University. With a background in literature and narrative studies she currently focuses on neuroscience, philosophy and psychedelics with a view to strengthening the ethical and existential dimensions of modern consciousness research. Mette has published on neurophilosophical issues in various news and public media and magazines. She is an accredited mindfulness teacher and guides weekly meditation sessions at the Uehiro Oxford Institute.