CANCELLED: ART OF DEEP LOOKING - ARCHITECTURE: CBD

THE ART OF DEEP LOOKING – CULTIVATING CREATIVITY

ARCHITECTURE: Experience exceptional architecture through space, form and texture at three iconic CBD architectural spaces including: No1 Bligh Street, Aurora Place and Chifley Square with facilitators Steve Pozel and Vanessa Lansdown for this session on Thursday 16 June, 10am (90 min)

Speed hides all subtlety, and reality is subtle. Arthur Zajonc, physicist and author

Join this experiential sensing lab as we tour three architectural spaces that will change your perceptions to amplify your creativity and imagination. In a world that always pushes the accelerator, this program gives you the power to pause and offers new insights and ways of seeing. The lab engages with architecture by drawing on centuries old wisdom and sharing new techniques in contemplative and mindful exploration.

We can often find ourselves lost in what has become known as “spatial blindness – where we have become passive or numb to our surroundings. To appreciate the artistry of our surroundings, we need to tune back into the awareness that operates just below the level of day-to-day self-consciousness, to engage with the spaces around us. Through contemplative, mindful viewing we can relax the mind and body, helping us consider these three architectural spaces with a fresh perspective and stimulating new insights.

Please meet within the outdoor foyer courtyard at #1 Bligh Street 10 minutes before the session is scheduled to begin.

Online Bonus Content

All participants will have access to:

• an online session to introduce the key techniques (with details will be forwarded upon registration)


• an optional Introducing Mindfulness virtual session for those new to – or with limited experience in – contemplative practices


• and an exclusive podcast series with artists, neuroscientists and mindfulness teachers to complement the labs.

Your facilitators include:

Vanessa Lansdown is a psychologist and mindfulness facilitator. She has delivered mindfulness workshops engaging art with AGNSW; and music and architecture for the Sydney Opera House. She is trained in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program and Mindful Schools. Vanessa works with Smiling Mind training teachers in mindfulness based social emotional learning.

Steve Pozel has worked with leading creatives across design, architecture and visual arts over the past three decades. He was director of The Power Plant, one of Canada’s premiere centres for contemporary art, before his role as CEO and creative director of the Australian Design Centre in Sydney. In more recent years, he has been pursuing an exploration around the intersection between creativity, innovation and mindfulness within both the educational and corporate sectors. In 2016, the Art Gallery of NSW invited Steve to run his Art in Mind program over a five-year period which has been also presented at the Sydney Opera House and other museums and galleries across Australia. For several years, he presented Understanding Mindfulness at Sydney’s The School of Life.

Steve is also a partner in the Sydney based consulting firm Curious Collective which works across education, health and the environment to create and embed disciplined learning programs that help build capability in thinking differently and addressing strategic challenges.