Feeling vs thinking: How art and documentary shape experiences differently
Can a documentary exist beyond the screen? This question came up in my conversation with Ariana Gerstein and Monteith McCollum on the Creating New Spaces podcast, where we explored the possibilities of outdoor media art and how it connects to documentary storytelling.
What We Bring, an installation by Ariana, first caught my attention because it was described as a nonfiction installation—an idea I hadn’t encountered before. As I’ve been working on The Nature of Japanese Gardens documentary, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the boundaries of documentary as a format—perhaps more than I should.
Blurring the line between documentary and installation
What We Bring is an outdoor installation consisting of thrifted clothing suspended on clotheslines, serving as projection surfaces. The garments, modified for translucency, are hung at varying heights, allowing wind and movement to affect the projections. The setup spans multiple lines, creating a layered effect where viewers can walk beneath and around the floating fabrics. Alongside the visuals, repurposed soup cans fitted with transducers are attached to poles, allowing visitors to pick them up and listen to ambient sounds and recorded voices from the documentary.
The challenges of media in outdoor spaces
The conversation with Ariana and Monteith on Creating New Spaces focused less on the idea of the installation as a physical documentary and more on the possibilities and challenges of working outdoors with media. This still left me wondering: what does it mean for a documentary to be physical? Ariana described how What We Bring is based on a moment in time, making it less about a structured narrative and more about an emotional response.
“And while I was at one of the locations, I saw that there was this wonderful line of clothing hanging in a sort of very commercial area, and it was all different colours, and I felt that there was something sort of celebratory and decorative, but also deeply personal, also very intimate. It was both of those things together that brought it into something that felt a little bit more touching, more moving, emotionally.”
Thinking first vs feeling first
I see documentaries as often leading us to think before feeling. In my work on The Nature of Japanese Gardens project, I use a guiding prompt: What is the viewer thinking about as they watch?—as a way of coming back to that point.
As I considered what an installation designed to spark new thoughts might look like, I found myself leaning more towards design than art. Museums and interpretive spaces are intentionally structured for engagement, guiding visitors through reflection and exploration. This approach aligns more with documentary—clear, informative, and structured to shape knowledge in a direct, intentional way.
Art, rather than presenting information outright, allows knowledge to emerge through experience, emotional resonance, and interpretation. Unlike documentary, which leads with thinking before feeling, art is often felt first, with understanding unfolding through engagement.
How meaning emerges
I see documentary as a medium that prioritises thought before emotion, while art engages the senses first, letting meaning surface through experience.
To hear more about Ariana and Monteith’s process in their own words, listen to the full conversation on the Creating New Spaces podcast. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.