
Nature Mandala (aka: Finding Nature in a Shopping Mall)
For two hours, we asked shoppers in the world’s largest MUJI store (無印良品) near Osaka, Japan to stop shopping, slow down, and re-connect with nature. Here’s what happened…
Ranging in topic from food to nature art to meditation, we have produced or co-produced over 100 artist-led workshops internationally, for people of all ages. All workshops are based in a mindful exploration of place. Participants come away with a deepened connection to nature and each other, and new confidence in the ability for awareness, creativity, and problem solving abilities.
For two hours, we asked shoppers in the world’s largest MUJI store (無印良品) near Osaka, Japan to stop shopping, slow down, and re-connect with nature. Here’s what happened…
A “sensing” exercise that helps participants focus their sense and awareness of a place, and sparks their creativity and problem solving abilities.
A team building exercise where groups work together to build a giant mandala from locally-foraged natural materials, celebrating local nature, and building stronger relationships with the environment and each other.
Participants learn simple ways to preserve and use plants to make postcards, exploring the shapes, textures, and colors of local plants, and using them to tell the story of places in more delicate and intimate ways than a traditional postcard.
An art-making workshop where participants discover the importance of the billions of individual living beings in the soil as we slowly delicately, and mindfully explore the myriad colors and life to be found in soil, stone, and other local natural elements.
A standards-integrated hands-on educational workshop that has students examine how their eating habits affect the soil and the ecosystem. Students will be able to demonstrate the importance of soil to the ecosystem, and devise their own real world answers and actions to combat ecological issues.