Earth
Body
Cloud
Earth Body Cloud is a field-based practice that brings together Chinese medicine, plant knowledge, sound, movement, and artistic research through embodied and situated experience. It explores how different ways of attending to body, environment, and perception generate different forms of knowledge, and how these forms of knowledge are cultivated through practice rather than abstract explanation.
At its core is a question that has informed this work since the mid-1990s: what does it mean that Chinese medicine “works”? Not as a question of validation, but as an inquiry into what kinds of body, perception, and world are implied when a medical system operates through correspondences, resonance, and relational mapping rather than anatomical description alone.
Earth Body Cloud develops this inquiry through situated workshops, walks, and immersive sessions that move between discussion, close reading of classical texts in translation, and embodied practices of attention. The aim is not to translate Chinese medicine into familiar frameworks, but to encounter what becomes perceptible when those frameworks are temporarily inhabited.
Clinical perception and
artistic translation
Earth Body Cloud includes a series of practice-based laboratories exploring how perception, diagnosis, and artistic form can operate as interconnected systems of attention and knowledge production. These sessions are designed for artists, clinicians, and researchers interested in developing practical methods for working across Chinese medicine, embodied perception, and contemporary artistic research.
At the core of this work is the question of how clinical listening, sensory training, and artistic notation might operate as complementary ways of organising experience. Rather than treating Chinese medicine as a body of knowledge to be interpreted, these sessions engage its diagnostic systems that include pulse diagnosis, pattern differentiation, and classical cosmological frameworks as active technologies of perception.
Participants work through structured practices that combine classical Chinese medical thinking with embodied clinical training and studio-based translation methods. This includes guided pulse diagnosis, close engagement with classical concepts such as qi dynamics and pattern formation, and the development of experimental systems of notation and mapping.
A key aspect of the work is translation between modes of perception: how clinical findings can be held, extended, and re-articulated through drawing, writing, sound, scoring systems, and other forms of artistic notation. These translations extend beyond illustration into methods of practice because they function as ways of testing, refining, and expanding perceptual and clinical attention.
Across the sessions, participants develop practical skills in:
- clinical listening and pattern recognition
- pulse diagnosis as a structured perceptual practice
- classical Chinese medical frameworks as diagnostic logics
- experimental notation, mapping, and compositional systems
- translation between clinical and artistic forms of attention
The aim is not to merge disciplines, but to develop precise methods for moving between them while maintaining the integrity of each mode of practice.
Suitable for: artists, Chinese medicine practitioners, researchers, and interdisciplinary practitioners working across perception, medicine, and contemporary art. No prior experience is required, though openness to sustained attention-based practice is essential.
Plant knowledge
and herbal walks
Walk-based sessions with medicinal plants in the landscapes of Portugal, including field observation, sensory study, and situated discussion. These sessions are grounded within clinical Chinese medicine herbal practice, plant knowledge, and research into plant physiology and relational systems of classification.
Plants are approached through direct encounter: sight, smell, texture, and seasonal emergence and are approached alongside classical and contemporary understandings of their medical and ecological roles. Sessions are shaped by location and season and may include focused attention on specific materia medica such as Artemisia, situated within both European and Chinese herbal traditions.
Suitable for: participants interested in plants, ecology, artistic practice, or furthering medical knowledge, including those without prior experience.
Embodied practice —
movement, attention, and
environmental perception
Earth Body Cloud includes structured tai qi and qigong sessions approached as practices for developing attention, coordination, and environmental awareness through movement.
Drawing on Chinese medical and martial lineages — and training with grandmasters Huang Ping (specialist in Bagua Jiang, Chen, Yang and Yang Sword forms) and Dennis Kah Swee Ngo (specialist in Fujian White Crane hard and soft forms) in London. One strand of practice will focus on the transmission and refinement of these traditional lineages, while another strand of practice will explore movement as a site of perception and composition, where tai qi practice can be extended into drawing, notation, and score-making. In these contexts, bodily awareness is translated into graphic, written, or sonic forms, allowing movement practice and artistic process to inform one another.
Across both approaches, each sequence can be understood as a form of somatic scoring that places the body (breath, posture, weight, and rhythm) into generative and healing relation with life forces.
Sessions are designed for artists, researchers, and creative practitioners whose work depends on sustained attention, physical presence, and perceptual refinement. They are also open to those seeking structured methods for regulating energy, focus, and recovery within demanding creative or professional contexts.
Session structure
Classes are small-group, barefoot-friendly, and require no prior experience. Each session includes a short arrival practice, a main movement sequence, and a quiet closing phase.
Core training cycles
Embodied Practice is organised through repeatable thematic cycles that develop specific perceptual and movement capacities:
- Grounded Awareness — stance, breath, and structural alignment; establishing stability and attentional return through simple spiral and rooting practices
- Balance and Energetic Flow — weight transfer, joint mobility, and coordination; developing walking patterns that support focus and continuity
- Strength and Resilience — soft strength training for shoulders, neck, and core; movement sequences oriented toward sustained creative work
- Environmental Practice — attention as spatial relation; moving with and through architectural or outdoor environments as perceptual fields
- Rest and Reset — lying, seated, and stillness practices for recovery, integration, and nervous system regulation
Formats
- Open Labs (monthly) — 90-minute sessions focused on specific themes linking Chinese medicine, movement practice, and attention training
- 6-week cycles — structured progression through the core training sequence
- 1:1 sessions (on request) — personalised movement practice aligned with studio work, health needs, or creative schedules
Note on approach
Seasonal rhythms and Chinese medical frameworks inform pacing, emphasis, and thematic orientation across sessions. Some cycles may include attention to specific life phases, including peri- and post-menopausal transitions, approached through movement, regulation, and perceptual support rather than clinical treatment.
Programme in development. Updates on forthcoming workshops, walks, and retreats will be announced here and via Earth Body Cloud channels.
→ Earth Body Cloud on InstagramEarth Body Cloud also develops through invited workshops, residency contexts, and collaborative projects at the intersection of Chinese medicine, ecology, sound, and artistic research. Previous work has taken place in art schools, research institutes, and practice-based programmes in the UK, China, and Portugal.
Teaching and collaboration enquiries
I am available for invited workshops, residency teaching, and collaborative projects at the intersection of Chinese medicine, ecology, art, and embodied practice. Previous teaching contexts include art schools, university research institutes, and practice-based research programmes in the UK, China, and Portugal.
Get in touch