This Installation and Performance was a culmination of a Zen arts workshop.

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Workshop Description

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In this workshop, through structured improvisation the 10 artists Cerro selected were guided through a simple process of meditation through art along with other exercises and forms of meditation in the Zen tradition including Zazen (sitting meditation) and Kihnin (walking meditation).  All of this took place in the martial arts dojo where Maria Cerro has been practicing Aiki Jutsu under Master Shahab Mahidashtisince since 1996. Many of the same spiritual principals learned and practiced in the martial art were also applied in the ArtAware classes.  

Through this process participants explored how creating patterns through repetition or ritual can imprint in our minds and therefore be used to further or limit our understanding of ourselves as artists and creators. They examined their own patterns and the potential to create new ones. The workshop provided both personal insight and practical tools to apply to both life and art.

All of the objects made were part of the ongoing ArtAware project.