The research project ‘Ask your hands to know the things they hold’ focuses on generative materialization of photographic images through organic materials. In this way, a potentially dominant gaze of a maker is exchanged by reacting to, and radically collaborating with, the mechanism and raw material itself. This creates an artistically open process driven by the vibrant matter itself. This research will focus on the local, the attachment to the soil, the connection to traditions, photographic history, seasons, and the attention to the earth. By working with materials of botanical origin, researcher Dries Segers wants the experiments to lead to new devices and techniques that (re)activate historical and innovative knowledge.