Mandala

I am not a big fan of Mandala. Spritual/ritual ideas does not attract me so much in visual art. Although I enjoy practicing meditation, yoga, and and listing to Buddist's radio stations, I would rather not relate it to the art making. I think of art as a universe where I can be total free to accept thousands of different ideas and play with them. Art is more of science to me.

art = experiment

For this reason, I feel confused and somehow limited to express my ideas within the spiritual philosophy. Though, I love the idea of "containing" of Mandala.

I remember working in a psychiatric ward in my first year. I was working with a group of ten patients with various mental disorders. Most of them were having difficult time with hallucinations and/or other challenging emotions. Given that fact, I encouraged them to create structurized projects, such as "Design a T-shirt." I was hoping not to neglect their feelings or thoughts, the patients were so concentrated on their graphic on T-shirts that their feelings were not expressed in the art-making or during discussion. My goal was to contain them with a structure, and help them all to express as much as they need to, within the give time of 40 minutes. Yet, it was challenging, and I felt frustration.

One morning, Jung happened to knock on my brain to rescue me. I chose to introduce Mandala to my patients. It was fascinating. They had a freedom to draw whatever they wish to express, yet they had "the contained circle." Some patients made it abstract, drew geometrical symbols presenting their ideas, while others drew figures related to their specific stories. I remember one patient, who had never opened himself, shared his picture of his partner hurting him. The patient explained his drawing and feelings about the issue. I could feel that he was feeling safe in the circle, eventhough he was still with the same group of people in the same room. His feelings were contained in his circle.

This is how I understand Mandala.