In November 2011,
Shakti Maira was invited to conducted a course, ‘Beauty and Ecology: An
Exploration’, with Satish Kumar at Bija International School for
Sustainable Living, at Dehradun, India.
The course
included an innovative two days of lectures, dialogue and 'relational
drawing' to develop a deeper understanding of beauty as a dynamic system
of relationality and sustainability because of the relational qualities of
balance, harmony, proportion and synergy, which constitute beauty in all
its facets – as an experience, a state and a process. How this deeper
understanding of beauty might help shape a variety of social systems and
be part of the ecological movement was explored.
Alternative
attitudes, including Gandhian, to everyday aesthetics were examined, as
was the question of inner beauty, and practices for cultivating deeper
seeing, imagination and meditative art practices using Relational Drawing.
(This is a contemplative method developed by Shakti Maira, which requires
no previous art training.)
Youtube video of
Shakti introducing the course
Shakti interacting
at the course
In January 2007,
Shakti Maira was invited by the GEMS group of schools in Dubai to conduct
a workshop for art teachers at their Millennium School. The workshop was
titled ‘Art for Life’, and was based on Shakti’s work with the ‘learning
through the arts’ paradigm. Some photographs:
