Moave
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Ecosystem
of sensations
Erasmus+ youth exchange
21. - 29. April 2026
Slovenia
Ecosystem of Sensations was a Youth Exchange that invited young people to explore perception, embodied awareness, and their relationship with themselves, others, and the natural environment.
The project focused on extended sensorial awareness: how we sensed, perceived, and related to the world when we slowed down, paid attention, and allowed our senses to expand beyond habitual, logical, or socially conditioned ways of knowing.
Through this exploration, we opened a space that became a poetic, experiential place of practice and research.
A place where we questioned how this related to us,
and therefore to the world around us.
How could being more aware make us more sensitive?
How did being more sensitive contribute to the world around us?
In this way, Ecosystem of Sensations was not about learning ecology as a concept, but about experiencing ecological thinking through the body, perception, and relationship.
About
"When we speak about ecology, we are not only referring to environmental issues, but to the way systems interact, support, affect, and depend on one another. In this sense, the body itself can be understood as an ecosystem, and sensing as a process that happens in relationship with the land, the group, the social context, and the moment."
The project brings together somatic practices, movement and dance exploration, time in nature, ecopsychology, artistic research, and group processes. Rather than following a fixed program, the exchange is shaped as a shared field of research, where participants are invited to explore questions that matter to them and to co-create the process together.
As a Youth Exchange, the project emphasises active participation, responsibility, and co-facilitation. Participants are not only taking part in activities, but are also invited to help shape them by bringing questions, proposing explorations, sharing practices or skills, and supporting group reflection and integration. No prior facilitation experience is required; curiosity, presence, and willingness to engage are what matter most.
Research in this context is not academic. It is experiential and embodied.
The focus is on:
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noticing what becomes possible when we pay attention,
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staying close to sensation, perception, and experience,
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and exploring how individual and collective processes shift when we inquire together.
Ecosystem of Sensations supports Erasmus+ values and goals
by creating opportunities for young people to take an active role, connect with others, and explore their potential. Through a co-created, research-based approach, participants dive into embodied, artistic, and ecological practices that help them build self-awareness, creativity, teamwork, and well-being. The project encourages diversity, inclusion, and intercultural exchange, while promoting care for the environment through hands-on experiences in nature. By taking responsibility for their learning and contributing to the group process, young people develop key skills and attitudes that align with Erasmus+ priorities for participation, social cohesion, and sustainable, reflective ways of living.
The group itself is understood as an ecosystem.
A living, relational space where different backgrounds, sensitivities, and perspectives meet, influence one another, and evolve over time.
Ecosystem of Sensations invites into a space to slow down, listen, experiment, and discover new ways of sensing and relating: to ourselves, to others, and to the world around us.
for who?
The topic that will run as a common thread throughout the project is Extended Sensorial Awareness and perception. Together with you, we would like to explore the possibilities of living that emerge when we allow our senses to expand beyond what is obvious, “normal,” and logical. This opens a naturally wide and sensitive space. Poetic, deeply aware and full of possibilities.
This Youth Exchange is open to young people aged 18–30 who are curious about sensorial experience, perception, and embodied ways of exploring themselves, others, and the world around them.
It is for those who feel drawn to slowing down, paying attention, and exploring their own questions and themes through lived experience.
Each participating country will be accompanied by
- one group leader, who may be over 30 years old and who will support the group throughout the exchange.
We aim to have 24 participants from Slovenia, Spain, Germany and Romania.
Participants must be over 17 years old and have a communicative level in English so that they can participate fully in the program.
This training course is funded through the Erasmus+ Programme, travel costs up to a specific maximum allowed amount will be fully reimbursed.
what to expect?
We like to combine somatics with nature and ecopsychology. We enjoy opening spaces of depth, vulnerability, and authenticity, while also offering plenty of movement and dance exploration.
As a Youth Exchange, this project opens a space where you are more actively engaged in shaping what will happen during our time together and how it unfolds. We would like to offer a field of research, exploration, and therapeutic and artistic inquiry, where you can bring your questions, offer your skills, and invite the group into something you would like to explore.
In this sense, each participant is also a co-facilitator of the process. Through your questions, curiosities, and presence, you will help form and shape the program together with us.
We are especially inviting young people who feel inspired by this combination of sensorial awareness, ecology, and creative exploration. You might already be expressing yourself through art, movement, youth work, activism, or other creative or caring practices — or you might simply be someone who is curious to explore your own themes, questions, and ways of being together with others.
We will hold and support the overall process, while the diversity of experiences, sensitivities, and perspectives each person brings becomes an essential part of the shared research. Everyone’s presence and way of engaging matters and helps shape what we discover together.
PROJECT RESULTS
"It was an opening of my youthness, spring vibe, connection with my emotions directly, without filters and with tenderness. It gave me a more clear need of young therapeutic and artistic community, wich I'm grounding theses days back home."
Mario - participant
Sensing memories
Photos and videos by Nayeli Špela
"This experience is honestly very difficult to summarize in words because it is something that needs to be lived and felt to truly understand it. The kind of connection that can develop between people in such a short amount of time is incredible. It was inspiring to see how openly people shared their thoughts and emotions, even with people they had only just met, and how everyone supported one another while also encouraging self-awareness and personal boundaries.
What made this project especially meaningful for me was experiencing it at the age of 22, while still being early in my studies and personal development. It gave me inspiration for the kind of work and environment I want to continue exploring in the future. At the same time, I learned so much from every single person participating in the project. Everyone brought different perspectives, experiences, and energies, and that collective exchange became one of the most valuable parts of the journey for me."
Amelie - participant
This Youth Exchange Ecosystem of Sensations was a shared learning process based on non-formal education, youth work principles and embodied, experiential exploration.
Most importantly, these processes created space for young people to feel seen, heard, and included in a real and meaningful way. At the same time, they were able to experience themselves as part of something bigger than just the individual—part of a group, a shared process, and a wider web of relationships with people, places, and the natural environment.
Instead of talking about connection in theory, we worked with it through experience: being together, listening, creating, moving, and simply paying attention to what was happening in and around us. This helped participants notice how much their mood, energy, and sense of well-being are influenced by the relationships and environments they are in.
Through this, young people often became more confident in how they feel and perceive things, more open toward others, and more aware of how their actions affect the group. Small everyday moments—like listening properly, sharing space, or spending time in nature—became learning experiences in themselves.
In the end, this supported not only personal growth and confidence, but also a stronger sense of care and responsibility. Many participants left with a clearer feeling that they are not separate from their surroundings, but part of them—and that how we treat ourselves, each other, and the world around us really matters.
For us as organisers, this is what brings great value and builds trust in this kind of work. It reminds us that these projects don’t end when the exchange is over—they continue as “seeds” that participants carry into their everyday lives, relationships, and communities.
The booklet shares the project’s approach, participant reflections, and key learning outcomes, highlighting the importance of creativity, connection, and self-discovery in youth work.
"The learning process for me happened on an implicit, embodied, pre-reflective level. It was not cognitive or language-based, so there are no or little words to attach to it. Rather than learning through thinking or conceptual understanding, the process for me unfolded through bodily experience, gradually anchoring me more deeply in my body, in myself, and in nature. It was an embodied process of integration rather than a cognitive one. So it is more a feeling than a thought that I would share about my learning process."
Kiara / participant
The pages that follow are a living collection of dissemination outcomes created by the participants of Ecosystem of Sensations. Rather than a final report, this booklet is a mosaic of experiences, reflections, artistic expressions, embodied practices, and small seeds of inspiration that emerged from our shared learning process.
Each contribution reflects a unique perspective on what it means to work with perception and embodied awareness—to slow down, to listen more closely, and to notice how the way we sense the world shapes the way we relate to ourselves, others, and the environment around us.
Some pages share practical exercises and methodologies that were explored during the exchange. Others capture lived moments, personal reflections, or creative interpretations of the experience.
Together, they form a diverse and living ecosystem of knowledge that continues to grow beyond the project itself.
We invite you to explore these pages with openness and curiosity, without needing to follow a fixed order. Let yourself move between different voices, practices, and ways of sensing.
May this booklet inspire you to notice the subtle “ecosystems of sensation” in your own life and practice—the way perception, body, emotion, and environment are always intertwined, shaping how we experience
and respond to the world.
Because learning, like sensing, is never fixed—it is something we continuously live through.
supportive team
Živa is an anthropologist, manual therapist, and researcher of somatic practices and contact improvisation.
Her work unfolds at the intersection of embodied awareness, relational sensing, and ecological ways of being. Her approach is grounded in touch, movement, spatial awareness, and subtle sensorial attention as gateways into inquiry and shared experience. Rather than transmitting fixed methods, she supports open research spaces where processes can emerge, where questions are welcomed, and where awareness becomes a shared field of exploration.
Nayeli is a psychologist working privately as a therapist with a Gestalt experiential psychotherapy approach. She has been a trainer in the field of non-formal education for more than 15 years. In the somatic and dance field, she is deeply inspired by contact improvisation, which has shaped her exploration of movement and its somatic approach beyond the dance studio. Having been actively engaged in the practice since 2017, she continues to investigate how this form expands her view on life.
"I am curious how to offer and hold space, where creativity and inspiration can blossom. I am interested in spaces where we can support each other's ideas and therefore dive into collective inspiration. To be sensitive and sensible is a map for exploration of new terrains in this wide ecosystem of togetherness."
project partners
