Mindfulness online is an alternative way to approach art.
Mindfulness in museums is not new. For the last three years, MoMA's Quiet Mornings in New York have been – with their private tour of the exhibitions and their guided meditation – making visitors “Look slowly, clear your head, silence your phone and get inspired for the day and the week ahead” on the first Wednesday of each month.
Lunchtime mindfulness sessions at the Manchester Art Gallery have served workers who had free time in the middle of the day as tool to disconnect from overstimulation, pressure and daily stress of your work environment.
Even the Museum of the University of Navarra offers an artistic creation workshop in which deep observation of an object is as important as breathing and focusing in the present moment when creating one's own work. An introspective process that goes far beyond the final result, as the institution explains.
The Rubin Museum of Art in New York is always inventing inventive ways to approach its collection.
However, it is now that, due to the temporary closure due to the Coronavirus, some artistic and cultural centers are beginning to share virtual mindfulness sessions with your followers to make them live in the present moment through art and, at the same time and more generally, create a positive impact on your health and well-being.
So if you want to try too control the agitation generated by confinement to achieve a greater emotional balance you only have to access the web pages of these museums.
VIRTUAL MINDFULNESS SESSIONS
"Ten minutes of ideas and tools to help open a window to our inner world so that we can better navigate abroad”, is how the Rubin Museum of Art in New York summarizes the Daily Offering video battery that it offers from Thursday to Monday through its website and, later, on its Instagram IGTV.
It is a series of episodes in which different thinkers, artists, meditation teachers and art experts share concepts and reflections related to the museum's Himalayan art collection.
Pieces from the Himalayan art collection at the Rubin Museum of Art (New York).
The initiative began on April 2 with a video in which Dawn Eshelman, the Rubin's head of programs, presented her favorite museum piece, a statue of the revered Tibetan Buddhist deity Tara, followed by a short meditation Directed by Sharon Salzberg, Buddhist meditation teacher, co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society of Massachusetts, and author of, among other books, The Power of Meditation.
And this week, for example, all attention (full!) has fallen on a painting of the Great Mother Prajnaparamita –the perfection of the Buddha’s wisdom–. First being analyzed in an artistic way by Dawnette Samuels, Manager of Visitor Experience and Interpretation of the Rubin Museum, and later, in a more spiritual and profound way, by the philosopher and educator Tenzin Priyadarshi.
For its part, since last March 23, the National Museum of Asian Art of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC allows (about four times a week) connect via Zoom to a series of meditation and mindfulness workshops with which the virtual visitor can, in addition to knowing the different artistic techniques that arise from Asian traditions, get to know his inner self a little better.
They are free, last 30 minutes and are led by meditation masters. You can check here its calendar of workshops scheduled for April and May.
The Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania has also chosen to facilitate several online meditation sessions guided by expert holistic practitioners.
Designed for teach participants to be in tune with the present, are called Mindfulness at the Museum and also intended to be a space for reflection and an opportunity for collective exchanges.
The next appointment will take place on May 1 and will be led by Sandi Herman, a well-known educator based in Philadelphia. expert in stress reduction techniques, mindfulness and self-care.
Other institutions that offer virtual mindfulness sessions They are the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) at the University of Utah and the Hammer Museum at UCLA (Los Angeles). Because now that we have time there is no longer an excuse not to reflect and, much less, not to be interested in art.