A project exploring changing notions of touch
1. touchThrough our hands, our feet, our limbs, our faces, we physically experience the world.
The way we move, hold ourselves and dance is all part of our ability to avoid or embrace touch. Through touch we learn boundaries, feel safe, learn to trust, deepen our connections and bonds with others and experience intimacy. Touch has even been said to have the ability to stop wars. Yet it's the sense that we seem to care the least about. 
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2. skin20 square feet of the stuff holds us together and forms a barrier between inside and outside. Millions of number nerves rest in our skin: each one alive, responding, tingling and translating stories from the world around us.
Skin is tough, water resistant and self-healing, yet also fragile. It's the largest organ in our body and it needs nourishment through human touch. Without human touch we have less ability to heal, less empathy, experience more isolation, are less happy and are more likely to experience disease. 
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3. Touch, today
Touch is something we do absentmindedly as children, it’s something we prioritise as parents, yet in a touch-averse society in the UK adults-to-adult touch often only happens when we’re drunk, high or having sex.
Touch is the most political of our senses and social perceptions and norms around flesh, skin and the boundaries we connect to touch shifts with every generation.
We’re living in an era where the counter-effects of Weinstein, child sexual abuse scandals and the #metoo movement means teachers can’t hug an injured child, people are scared of any physical contact in the workplace and our relationship with touch is more greatly diminished than perhaps ever before.
These social norms on top of Britain’s already touch-averse consumer culture means we touch each other less and touch ‘things’ more.
And it’s not that we don’t desire it or need touch: the number of massages people take is on the rise, cuddle parties and the free hugs movement all show touch is still fundamental to many of us.
Touch is the most political of our senses and social perceptions and norms around flesh, skin and the boundaries we connect to touch shifts with every generation.
We’re living in an era where the counter-effects of Weinstein, child sexual abuse scandals and the #metoo movement means teachers can’t hug an injured child, people are scared of any physical contact in the workplace and our relationship with touch is more greatly diminished than perhaps ever before.
These social norms on top of Britain’s already touch-averse consumer culture means we touch each other less and touch ‘things’ more.
And it’s not that we don’t desire it or need touch: the number of massages people take is on the rise, cuddle parties and the free hugs movement all show touch is still fundamental to many of us.
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4. This project
I’ve been tracking some of the things we touch on a daily basis as adults.
Single people, people living alone, or those in prisons might experience touch only once in 1000 interactions. Or not even once a day.
Increasingly, the way that human touch happens often is not skin-to-skin: it's through clothing (when squashed into a sweaty tube with strangers) or fleeting (when someone brushes past you in the supermarket).
This project is highlights changing notions of touch, shines a light on the impact of technology to the way we connect with each other and and highlights the importance of human connection.
I explored a day in the life of touch. I observed people on trains, planes, buses and pavements.
What stood out to me was the number of people on their phones - even if they were with a loved one.
Single people, people living alone, or those in prisons might experience touch only once in 1000 interactions. Or not even once a day.
Increasingly, the way that human touch happens often is not skin-to-skin: it's through clothing (when squashed into a sweaty tube with strangers) or fleeting (when someone brushes past you in the supermarket).
This project is highlights changing notions of touch, shines a light on the impact of technology to the way we connect with each other and and highlights the importance of human connection.
I explored a day in the life of touch. I observed people on trains, planes, buses and pavements.
What stood out to me was the number of people on their phones - even if they were with a loved one.
