Sapphic Spirit Wellbeing Series: ‘Mindful Drawing’ Workshop

‘Mindful Drawing’ Workshop with Birgitta Hosea and Kalie Jade

Date and time:
Sat, 4 March 2023, 13:00 – 17:00 GMT

Location
QUEERCIRCLE 3 Soames Walk #Building 4 London SE10 0BN United Kingdom

Book your ticket here [sliding scale donation]

THEME 3: SELF-EXPRESSION

Welcome to the third in a series of activities and mini breaks to help you through troubled times. These pop-up gatherings aim to reduce stress, anxiety and improve the quality of life for LBTQ women & non-binary people.

Join us on Saturday 4th (at Queercircle in North Greenwich) for a unique opportunity to explore your artistic side. By combining meditation, mindfulness and drawing, you will focus on the present moment and lose yourself to self-expression without fear and judgement, guided by a talented queer artist. Our activities for this event will include meditation and mindful drawing, with a range of exercises tailored to bring awareness into bodily sensations and release trapped emotions.

Our series of wellbeing days are aimed at all levels, facilitated by qualified and experienced teachers who are volunteering their time for our community. We start with a brief sharing circle and cup of tea among new friends and finish with group feedback. Please note, most people attend alone, so don’t be nervous.

These events are donation-based to raise essential funds for Spiritual Lesbians and Wellbeing, a UK-wide community support group. We urgently need donations to cover our running costs and provide more opportunities for those in need. Any extra money raised will be added to Aggy’s Fund – a huge, exciting new project of ours for LBTQ people in physical, mental and emotional difficulty. *

Meet your LBTQ teachers:

Birgitta Hosea – Queer Artist:

Birgitta Hosea is a Queer artist and curator working with time-based drawing. She studied at Glasgow School of Art and Central Saint Martins, is Professor of Moving Image at the University for the Creative Arts and has written a number of publications on mindful drawing, performance and experimental animation. Her most recent book is Performance Drawing: New Practices Since 1945 (Bloomsbury, paperback 2022) co-written with Maryclare Foá, Jane Grisewood and Carali McCall.

A practicing Buddhist, she uses drawing as part of her meditation practice, making drawings that focus on being made in the present moment rather than on the end result. Through this process-based approach, she seeks to capture fleeting moments of time and motion through a trace of bodily action and gesture. This may take the form of a performance, a graphic score, an animation or a series of sequential images on paper. Her most recent exhibitions include ASIFAKEIL, Vienna; National Gallery X; Centre for Recent Drawing, London; Venice Biennale; Karachi Biennale; Oaxaca Museum of Contemporary Art; Chengdu Museum of Contemporary Art; Guizhou Provincial Museum; Hanmi Gallery, Seoul. Her work is included in the Tate Britain and Centre d’Arte Contemporain, Paris, archives.

Mindfulness and Drawing Workshop:

Want to work on your wellbeing? Mindful meditation has been proven to decrease stress, anxiety and depression; improve emotional regulation; focus attention and increase creativity. In this workshop, drawing will be used as a tool for concentration as part of Vipassana meditation. The act of drawing enables you to be connected to being here and now in the present moment: just looking or listening to instructions and responding spontaneously by making marks without too much thinking. No previous knowledge of drawing is necessary. Be prepared to work with your eyes shut and that you may get messy from the drawing materials.

Kalie Jade – Meditation Teacher:<7h2>
Kalie is a Reiki Master, Gong Master/Sound Therapist, Meditation Teacher, Crystal Healer and Animal Communicator, who works with clients on a one-to-one and group basis. She has helped numerous people on their healing pathway and thrives on making a positive difference in people’s lives.

Kalie will be hosting the event and guiding everyone through an introductory meditation.

*Aggy’s fund is a brand new Spiritual Lesbian and Wellbeing initiative to offer respite for people experiencing physical, mental or emotional difficulty. Our goal is to provide rare opportunities for healing by contributing to the cost of spaces on mini breaks and retreats for those in need. We are in the process of applying for funding through various applications and will be advertising upcoming opportunities. The fund is in memory of one of our members called Aggy, who greatly benefited from our support group.

**THIS WILL BE A POPULAR SESSION, VERY LIMITED SPACES AVAILABLE. BOOK EARLY TO AVOID MISSING OUT