This summer again, the Villa Vauban, in Luxembourg City, is offering a workshop combining art and yoga. An original activity to (re)discover the museum. Reportage.
Culture differently
This summer again, the Villa Vauban, in Luxembourg City, is offering a workshop combining art and yoga. An original activity to (re)discover the museum. Reportage.
Sitting cross-legged in front of a wall covered in paintings, a dozen or so students attend, concentrated, during “Yog’Art” at the Villa Vauban. For the past three years, the museum has opened its doors, in the evening, to art and yoga lovers for a workshop that is atypical to say the least.
Until the end of the summer, twice a month, Chahra Djennas proposes to associate painting with meditation. Obviously for this art mediator, passionate about yoga. “It’s a real invitation to disconnect,” explains the young woman, enthusiastic.
“A walk through art”
In black leggings and tank top, the thirty-something begins by setting the scene. “Close your eyes, focus on your breathing,” she begins in a soothing voice, against a backdrop of nature sounds. After a few postures on the ground, the young Luxembourger begins the explanations of three to four works in the small room devoted to French art around 1850.
5:30 p.m., class begins. Chahra invites the students to relax, while the latecomers take their seats.
Photo: Marc Wilwert / Luxemburger Wort
5:30 p.m., class begins. Chahra invites the students to relax, while the latecomers take their seats.
Photo: Marc Wilwert / Luxemburger Wort
The students, concentrated, listen attentively to the young woman.
Photo: Marc Wilwert / Luxemburger Wort
In English, Chahra details every move.
Photo: Marc Wilwert / Luxemburger Wort
The positions follow one another.
Photo: Marc Wilwert / Luxemburger Wort
The positions follow one another.
Photo: Marc Wilwert / Luxemburger Wort
All of them, in the middle of the works in the small room.
Photo: Marc Wilwert / Luxemburger Wort
Now the positions, the yoga teacher and art mediator draws their attention to the works.
Photo: Marc Wilwert / Luxemburger Wort
For Vincent (here on the left), this course constitutes “a beneficial break in the week”.
Photo: Marc Wilwert / Luxemburger Wort
Then comes the explanation.
Photo: Marc Wilwert / Luxemburger Wort
For each session, Chahra chooses carefully what she will present, varying paintings, sculptures and engravings. Its objective is to enable participants to “better understand the act of creation” and to “approach the works differently”. With, always, the idea of offering “a walk through art”, she specifies.
A walk that his students seem to enjoy, like Vincent. This “yogi” has participated in these sessions four times. For the 40-year-old, doing yoga in a museum is “inspiring” to say the least. “It’s changing!” Says, smiling, the one who admits to having passed in front of the museum for a long time without ever crossing its doors.
Besides, what he appreciates the most is the setting. “It’s a bit like having windows on different exteriors,” says this former art history student. As for the works, “it’s another way of seeing them,” he says. Because if the participants observe them from further away, they remain on the other hand “significantly longer in front”.
At the exit, the small group seems delighted with the experience. A “privileged moment” that most yogis of the day say they are ready to repeat, while 73% of residents, according to a recent study by Liser, say they are not used to going to the museum.
For the latter, it is therefore a successful bet. By leaving the traditional framework, the structure attracts a new public. While reconnecting with one of its main objectives: to be a place of discovery.
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The art of meditation comes to the museum
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