Would you feel comfortable in nature without your phone for five minutes? Conceptual artist Rachel Hovnanian invites visitors to try in her ‘Nature Deficit Disorder’ immersion room at the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA).
To fully immerse themselves into the experience, visitors step inside Hovnanian’s ‘forest’ filled with trees, plant life, and even some cockroaches. (Don’t worry though, the cockroaches are fully contained). The exhibition challenges visitors to see how comfortable they are being in nature without their phones for up to five minutes. Hovnanian also offers visitors complimentary Mountain Dew, and even barbeque flavored crickets as part of the experience.
Running until May 31st, the immersion room is an installation at the BMA’s ‘Spring House,’ which equips visitors with a fully immersive experience, encouraging them to lock away their phones temporarily and disconnect from the digital world. This is a free, non ticketed exhibition at the BMA. Kathryn McCoy ‘28 said how she was surprised by her time spent in the immersion room.
“The first few minutes being in the immersion room I definitely found myself wanting to check my phone for texts and stuff like that. But after a few minutes, I became very relaxed, more relaxed than I had been in a while,” McCoy said.
Hovnanian explains why it is important that people recognize the benefits time spent in nature has for humans. She says that constantly looking to check our devices isn’t natural for people, and that nature is one way to step away from that constant digital connection to truly relax.
Keegan Murray ‘28 said how even just five minutes in, the immersion room made him look at his relationship with his phone differently.
“Sitting in the immersion room and realizing that the things I’m tempted to check on my phone, aren’t really that important. Being alone surrounded by nature made me realize that all of the incoming alerts on my phone aren’t always deserving of my time and energy,” Murray said.
Artist Hovnanian, who is a Parsons School of Design graduate, said technology plays a large role in isolating people from the real world. From her own experience, she explained how spending time in nature can be a tool used to combat this, making her feel less rushed and anxious. She passionately believes that nature does wonders for people of all ages and cannot be replicated through anything digital.
“Technology is wonderful in the sense that it connects us but it also disconnects us. I mean thank God we had our phones particularly during Covid but you know you just never got that real sense of being together… nature really does heal,” Hovnanian said.
Hovnanian said that it’s important for young people, especially children, to have exposure to nature due to the benefits it reaps. Her art took inspiration from a UK-based study from 2016 that reported, large groups of children get less time outside than prison inmates.
“Inmates get more time in nature than children do, and so I said, let me look at this. And that’s when I actually built the forest,” Hovnanian said.
Check out this free, non ticketed exhibition while it’s still here! Click here to learn more.
