Mantra, Movement And Making

Deepen your creative relationship to yourself through mantra, movement and mark making inspired by the exhibitions and galleries at Tate Modern after hours. Over this four week course you will practice simple and subtle yoga and meditation techniques applicable to your daily art making routine. The sessions combine both collective and individual making, infused with time for discussion and self-reflection.

The course is open to beginner and advanced creative practitioners with physical yoga accessible to all. Materials and light refreshment of Ayurvedic teas are provided. We ask you to bring a yoga mat, cushion and blanket and wear comfy clothes to allow movement.

The sessions are facilitated by Jagat Joti Kaur, who is Kundalini Yoga Teacher in the lineage of Shiv Charan Singh, his Karam Kriya School as well as the School of Ayurvedic Studies in the Netherlands. She has exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery as part of the Photographic Portrait Award (prior to receiving her yoga lineage name) and shares performances and workshops within Tate Modern and Britain and beyond. Jagat Joti also set up and runs the Healing Arts Team, a specialist programme within the NHS for both staff and patients, working with creatives of all kinds to go deeper into their practice.

Course outline:
Week 1
Loving bow

Through yoga movement, simple vocal sound and quite self-contemplation we will set our healing intention for our art making, bowing to the truth within ourselves.

Our physical yoga practice will focus on exploring the vertical axis and the movement of the spine.

Week 2
True hunger

Art making can be the source of great nourishment and healing for both ourselves and in relationship with others.

What are you truly hungry for? How do you express this through your creative process?

Our yoga practice will focus on the left right axis and a meditation on receiving and releasing, filling and emptying.

Week 3
Real work

Our practice this week will centre around exercises for connecting to the inner stamina required to complete our life’s work. Our yoga will focus on our navel and strengthen our creative nerves with ‘breath of fire’. We will explore the infrastructure of our daily artistic discipline.

Week 4
Inspiring art

We will complete our process together with an extended period of meditative making. Our process will conclude with suggestions for ongoing practice and time to reflect on our processes together.