A sensory walking event co-created by a community of cross-border neurodivergent collaborators, led by artist AlanJames Burns with Insight Research Ireland Centre for Data Analytics, Dublin City University

Awash with texture and tiny details, Unmasking Nature’s guided geopark experience is shaped by sensory cues, rather than traditional mapping techniques. This bold, original project is a permission slip to step away from societal systems that cage us.

The event explored joyful ways of engaging with the natural world. Co-designed with neurodivergent people who came together as a community over several months, the walk route takes inspiration from their special interests, and is created with disabled participants in mind. Opportunities to experience their creative responses to the site include “deep dive” information points, in addition to the insights of professionals and experts in the areas of fungi, food foraging and biophilia.

At its core, Unmasking Nature asks, “What does it mean to be neurodivergent in nature?”. Across this event we celebrate people’s connection to nature through stimming and emotional cartography. By embracing feel-good, intuitive explorations to the geopark’s deeply interconnected sensory landscape, the project invites event participants to engage with themes such as biodiversity and more-than-human communication (including with plants, animals and inanimate elements) through an inclusive, neurodivergent lens.

Through immersive experiences and moments of soft fascination, Unmasking Nature encourages us all to arrive with a curious outlook, and leave with a renewed sense of connection to the varied, beautiful ways that minds can move through the world.