Come to Your Senses
A Senses-based Learning Guide
Come to Your Senses is a visual learning guide that explores how sensory approaches can enrich education and everyday life. Developed from research conducted at Maastricht University between 2021 and 2024, the book presents 23 practical exercises that invite readers to engage with seeing, tasting, smelling, hearing and feeling in more conscious and creative ways.
I worked on the publication as co-editor and illustrator, collaborating closely with the authors to transform their exercises and research into an accessible comic-book format. My background in architecture, urbanism and artistic research, as well as my own practice with illustration and sensory approaches, brought me to the project through my PhD supervisor, Emilie Sitzia.
The illustrations are designed around the idea of a scrapbook built over time. I combined quick sketchbook drawings and handwritten annotations with collage, recycled papers, magazine cuttings, stamps, photographs, sticky notes and found materials. Rather than creating a polished or distant visual language, I wanted the pages to retain traces of their making: textures, imperfections, layers and moments of incompleteness. The book therefore feels less like something to simply read and more like something to interact with, a visual invitation for readers to add their own notes, drawings and observations.
I translated the exercises into comics, using sequential drawing to make the instructions more engaging and accessible. Each activity was carefully structured into pages, combining selected and edited text with drawings, diagrams, photographs and material experiments. I also recreated several exercises during the illustration process, allowing me to understand how readers might experience them and to test how different visual approaches could communicate sensory processes.
My editorial and illustration process moved between reading, questioning, outlining, making and testing. I worked closely with the authors to clarify each exercise's content, identify its learning goals, and determine what information needed to be translated visually. After developing the overall visual language, I created detailed page outlines and built the illustrations largely by hand, then scanned and assembled them digitally. The final stage involved coordinating revisions, proofreading and preparing the visual material for publication.
The result is a 224-page English-language comic book that combines research, instruction and visual storytelling. Rather than simply explaining sensory learning, Come to Your Senses asks readers to experience it: through exercises they can use in classrooms, professional contexts, or everyday life.
Come to Your Senses: A Senses-based Learning Guide
Editors: Emilie Sitzia, Elene Kadagidze & Tânia Alexandra Cardoso
Illustrations: Tânia Alexandra Cardoso
Design: De Vormforensen
Published by nai010 Publishers, 2025
224 pages · English · 17 × 24 cm
ISBN 978-94-6208-939-6
