The Mindfulness Project: Self-Inquiry and Art-Making

• In Event: Relational and Socio-Emotional Impacts of Spirituality

Abstract

This paper describes a qualitative study of pre-service art education students designed to explore relationships between mindfulness, self-inquiry, artistic practices, and how mindfulness practices might connect, overlap or influence the personal artistic practices of the participants. Artistic applications of data visualization emerged as a significant connection between art and self-inquiry. Although mindfulness is often used as an intervention to counter the stresses of school and teaching, mindfulness can also be thought of as a counter cultural phenomenon that explores possibilities of a critical pedagogy. The study investigated how the critical responsiveness and awareness of the artist might contribute to an understanding of mindfulness and create an awareness of how mindfulness might be practiced within existing social and cultural structures.

Author

• Mark A. Graham, Brigham Young University