was a public event that invited visitors to step out of their everyday routines and explore how we experience the world through our senses. Held across two intriguing spaces—one red, one yellow—it offered a playful yet thought-provoking journey into perception.
The experience began with a twist: each visitor was blindfolded and gently guided into the red room by students dressed as lab technicians. Once inside, they removed their blindfold and were immersed in a carefully curated mix of lights, sounds, textures, and tastes; all designed to spark curiosity and heighten sensory awareness. Then, blindfolds back on, they were led into the yellow room for a second round of sensory stimuli, each one different from the last.
After exploring both rooms, participants were invited into a third space, a creative zone, where they reflected on their experiences. Using a playful mix of plasticine, they created 3D representations of how the red and yellow rooms made them feel. They also marked their impressions on a circular chart inspired by a James Russell’s psychological model of emotion, showing whether their experience felt calming or energising, joyful or unsettling.
Sensory Lab wasn’t just an event, it was an experiment in perception, imagination, and emotion. It asked: how do our senses shape how we feel? And how do variations across colours, textures, sounds, taste influence our emotional responses?
Emotional expressions
Reference
Russell, James. (1980). A Circumplex Model of Affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.