Designing the Conditions for Change
In my previous blog post, I shared the starting point for 'Threads of Memory.' Now, this is where the collaboration began to take shape.
Where art meets neuroscience
Bringing together textile practice and neuroscience, we designed a series of experiences that could support gentle neurological and emotional change, not through talking alone, but through making, sensing, and slowing down.
Lianne’s research explores how traumatic memory can become embedded within strongly reinforced neural pathways, patterns that fire repeatedly, often outside of conscious control. These pathways can feel fixed, but crucially, they are not. Through reconsolidation, there are windows where the brain becomes receptive to new associations and alternative pathways. Our intention was to design workshops that could help participants enter those windows.
Copyright © Touch & Trace - Alice Burnhope & Lianne Keighery
Through slow, repetitive, tactile processes—stitching, weaving, rope-making—we encouraged the body to settle into a more regulated, meditative state. These rhythmic, hands-on actions have been associated with changes in patterns of neural activity shifting brainwave activity, particularly moving away from high-alert states into calmer brain frequencies, where the nervous system softens and the mind becomes more receptive.
This wasn’t about forcing change, but about creating the conditions where change becomes possible. As the hands repeated simple actions, something else began to happen. The intensity of thought softened. The body slowed. Participants began to sit differently within themselves.
Alongside this embodied process, Lianne introduced key ideas around how the brain works, explaining neural pathways, synaptic firing, and the brain’s capacity to rewire. Rather than delivering this as abstract science, the experience was grounded in metaphor, analogies, imagery, and what participants were already feeling in their hands.
As one participant reflected:
“Before this, I didn’t really understand how my brain worked. The workshops have given me a real insight into what’s going on — how my thoughts and feelings connect. It’s helped me make sense of things that used to feel confusing or overwhelming.”
Copyright © Touch & Trace - Alice Burnhope & Lianne Keighery
As the workshops progressed, we noticed that participants felt increasingly safe in the space and within the structure we’d created. This was confirmed in their reflections towards the end of the project - moving from questioning themselves, to understanding their mind with more clarity and compassion.
Next blog, I’ll take you inside the workshops themselves—how they were designed and what unfolded within them.
