This FEELed Note was written by FEELed Lab administrator Julia Jung.
It’s been just over a year that I joined the FEELed lab as a PhD student and lab administrator and I can’t believe it’s already time to write this reflection! In my first FEELed Note, holding with care, I wrote about the tensions of honoring what has come before and keeping with tradition while also weaving my own vibe into the lab.
Throughout the year, I tried to balance these tensions by addressing each moment in a way that allowed me to learn something new and/or bring in what I knew from before. I will go through my review of the year following the seasons, highlighting the weaving of [new] and [old], because I love the season timelapses in Rom-Coms.
Fall
Seeing a patch of yellow-leafed trees across the lake, cozy potlucks at the lab, settling in, trying to build a home for the winter.
We started working on our Lab Values project using a mix of old and new methods: rich pictures [old], storytelling [new], associations – both.
Winter
Tension anticipating the snow, getting to know the branches through their missing leaves, early nights and northern lights.
The longest standing traditional gathering at the lab is our “Welcoming the Dark” event, which was so wonderful. We made a set of rogue zines as guerilla advertising (my first zines!), had fondue and told stories on the theme “Stockpiling Stories for Winter” based on one of my favorite children’s stories, Frederick, by Leo Lionni.
In the dark winter, [new] things started to grow – our knowledge mobilization project and our move away from Instagram slowly pushed up through the snow. I realized that snowdrops [old] also grow here!
Spring
Fresh lake dips, bright green Oregon grape leaves, Arrow-leaf Balsamroot all over Knox Mountain and sweet cottonwood scented air along the railtrail.
The Winter had been longer than expected and I found my spring energy again in Europe, thinking about how to connect those [new] unfurlings here to my [old] roots elsewhere.
The lab becoming as lively as the [new] growth, workshops, visitors, dreams, plans and schemes for the future all flowing down the mountains with the melting snow.
Summer
So much cottonwood fluff, the vortex opening, music, dance, fear, bright pink sunsets coloring the sky from beyond the mountains.
During our 2025 FEELers Summer Camp I organized an Exquisite Corpse project, which is an [old] asynchronous art-game/method that I have been developing as part of the Cobra Collective. Our explorations with this method at summer camp have unfurled into a [new] research project about art and climate justice – more on this here! It feels like this grew organically, an unexpected bright sunflower blooming and waiting for me as I turned around.
[New] people at the lab, I saw footage of quail drinking in Clara’s film that almost made me cry and I felt ashamed and surprised that I had never thought about quails drinking before.
Tasting smoke and seeing the red wildfire sun that I had heard so much about, buying cherries from the side of the road and mornings spent reading outside with my coffee in the sun.
Fall
So many people, fresh cool morning air, hot afternoon sun and the warmth of coming back together after summer adventures. All the crafting!!
Welcoming [new] students during the ARTS Block Party and our first lab meeting felt so wonderful and surreal. We made an “Ecosystem of Emotions”-poster and invited people to share their feelings of the moment with us. My idea for this poster was based on an [old] game/poster I made for the Sharkfest UK in Bristol, back in 2018.
I was so excited to see that the first sticky note that someone added read “Gender Euphoria!”, but a lot of feelz people described were some form of being tired or overwhelmed. In response, I tended to say, “I feel you”, because it hadn’t been a long time since I was feeling that way and of course, I still do sometimes. Arriving, community building and scheming takes time and energy, but I also feel like I have that time to keep arriving, reflecting and being here. #SlowLifeClub – which has been my unofficial motto for 2025 to savor all the feelz.
The FEELed lab 