Audio Guides as a Tool for Meditation and Education

The Homing program at Strouds Run State Park demonstrates how art, performance, and ecology can intersect to encourage environmental and personal awareness. By engaging participants in an immersive audio and movement journey, it transforms recreational time in nature into an experience of mindful connection.

“HOMING” – defined as the ability to return to a place after traveling a far distance, to move or be aimed towards, or to focus attention on – offers a site-specific audio installation paired with a participatory performance score that guides participants through Strouds Run State Park. The experience prompts individuals to deepen their awareness of their surroundings by engaging with sensations, attention, and movement in relation to the local environment.

Participants can access the audio guide via their own smartphones/headphones by using QR codes posted on signs throughout the park, or by downloading the guide ahead of time. A small number of mp3 players with headphones are available at the Athens County Public Library.

By guiding participants to slow down and connect themselves to their environment, Homing reframes recreation as more than consumption of natural space, it blends them together. This heightened attentiveness can reduce ecological impact by encouraging visitors to follow trails, explore the available areas, and notice things that often go unnoticed. Homing encourages conservation not through rules alone but through immersion, transforming ordinary park visits into practices of respect and connection with nature. This would hopefully result in more people becoming stewards of place and feeling responsible for the living beings.

References.

HOMING: An Audio/Movement Journey. (2021). Ohiodnr.gov. https://ohiodnr.gov/home/news-and-events/all-events/parks-wc-events/arts-in-the-parks/programs/homing

‌This text reflects contributions from the original Ohio Department of Natural Resources article Homing: An Audio/Movement Journey (~45%), the author’s framing and requests for structure, emphasis, and analysis (~30%), and AI assistance in selecting, excerpting, synthesizing, and composing the introduction, quotation integration, and conservation analysis (~25%). All interpretations remain the responsibility of the author.