Periphery
Boost your state of wonder
What is Periphery?
Periphery is a month-long, immersive, multi-sensory program that encourages awareness across body, mind, community, the more-than-human natural world, and technology. In systems that often separate us from our bodies, our environments, and each other, Periphery offers a return to relationship.
Drawing on Attention Restoration Theory (ART) and Stress Reduction Theory (SRT), this program is built on the understanding that nature, sensory engagement, and moments of soft fascination are essential for replenishing attention and soothing the nervous system.
Periphery also integrates practices from expressive arts and social practice, inviting participants into hands-on, reflective, and often playful encounters with sound, movement, image-making, and storytelling. These art-based experiences open up new pathways for connection within the self, others, and the more-than-human natural world.
With a mix of somatic prompts, creative rituals, and sensory invitations, Periphery offers a co-creative space for slowing down, noticing more, and making everyday life feel a little more alive.
What can I expect?
Less scrolling, engaging conversations, real mail, leisurely strolls, less texting, meaningful interactions with neighbors, sunrises and/or sunsets, less posting, dirty boots, planetary discoveries, imagination, spontaneous dance parties, unhurried meals, olfactory experiments, putting pen to paper, a newfound appreciation for long-form music, expanded connections with the non-human world, deeper breathing, guilt-free moments of idleness, short naps, a revitalized sense of self, reduced anxiety, deeper friendships, shamelessness, happier children, intrigued partners, healthier pets, thriving plants, and more.
Who will I be working with?
Hi! I’m Felicity Fenton (she/they)—a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and digital wellness advocate dedicated to cultivating balance, connection, and awareness amid the complexities of modern life.
For over two decades, I’ve explored and practiced a range of embodied and creative modalities, including Shamatha-Vipashyana meditation, reiki, yoga, improvisational dance, music, writing, and visual art. I hold an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts with a focus on Art as Social/Relational Practice from Goddard College, and I’m currently pursuing an MS in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Prescott College, with an emphasis on experiential art, nature-based, and somatic therapies through the Somatic Intuitive Healing Institute in Portland, Oregon.
Years ago, my graduate work led me to a small farm in Los Lagos, Chile, where I stepped away from technology and immersed myself in the rhythms of land and body. That pause from digital noise shifted my approach to art, daily life, and relationships, and planted the early seeds for Periphery.
My facilitation style is collaborative and non-hierarchical, drawing from decolonial approaches to care and connection. As a white facilitator, I approach this work with humility, ongoing unlearning, and a commitment to honoring Indigenous and historically marginalized ways of knowing. I strive to create environments that are inclusive, relational, and rooted in care, with respect for individual pacing, sensory needs, and ways of engaging. This includes a commitment to affirming LGBTQ2SIA+ identities, supported by training through the William & Mary Counselor Education Program, and a practice that honors neurodivergent experiences and varied modes of communication. This ethos of presence, accessibility, and co-creation shapes every aspect of Periphery.
How Periphery Took Shape
My relationship with technology is an ongoing saga, one I revisit every time I reach for my phone or open my laptop. Most weekdays, I blink at browser tabs, toggle between email threads, emoji-laced texts, and a persistent sense of digital overstimulation. Like many of us, I rely on the internet for work, research, art-making, writing, and community. I'm no Luddite, but I’ve been reckoning with the highs and lows of digital life since I created my first email address.
A few years ago, Future Tense Books published my pocket-sized lyric essay User Not Found, a chronicle of my attempts to loosen the internet’s grip on my body, mind, and creative practice. In it, I explored everything from privacy concerns and the ethics of big tech to the attention economy, data’s environmental toll, social media trolls, and the issue of conflict minerals. But mostly, I wrote about the toll of compulsive scrolling and the frayed sense of connection I felt to my body, art, community, and natural world.
Technology isn’t all doom. It’s allowed us to access creative, educational, and radical resources we might not otherwise reach, and connect across distances in ways that matter big time. Periphery was born from the desire to hold both truths: that the internet can be expansive and meaningful and that boundaries are essential. This program is about creating a more conscious relationship with a tech that doesn’t consume us. Much of the work in Periphery is self-directed, inviting you to reconnect with yourself and the world around you, offline. My role is to offer a foundation: thoughtfully curated packages with offline activities and creative prompts, invitations to sensory workshops, two one-on-one phone sessions, and a handful of wholehearted hurrahs (pom-poms optional, but encouraged).
Access & Inclusion
Periphery is designed with the understanding that everyone engages, senses, and processes differently. This space welcomes all bodies, identities, and neurotypes—and holds care at its core.
We strive to:
Affirm and support LGBTQ2SIA+ participants
Honor neurodivergent ways of experiencing, expressing, and relating
Offer sensory-friendly practices and invitations (with opt-outs always available)
Create a space free from hierarchy, where participants are invited to move at their own pace
Stay attuned to access needs and open to feedback
If there’s anything that would help you feel more supported during this program—whether it’s a specific communication style, movement adaptation, or sensory consideration, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Accessibility is a shared conversation, and I’m here for it.
How can I sign up?
If all of this sounds as exciting to you as it does to me, let's connect for a free thirty-minute introduction call. Together, we can assess whether Periphery is the right fit for you.