Culture Lab: Artist As Healer (2021-2022)
Yogacharini Maitreyi was selected as the inaugural ‘Artist as Healer’ by the Indian Summer Arts Society in 2021-22. Maitreyi led a highly successful five-month research and solutions lab, which culminated in the creation of an enlightening educational documentary film on inner and outer healing titled ‘Karma: Song of the Breath’. The film screened at the 2022 Indian Summer Festival accompanied by an immersive musical, meditative mindful movement journey of pranayama, breath, and kirtan (soul song). Additionally, she hosted a thought-provoking panel discussion that featured distinguished medical professionals from both the Mindfulness Institute and Harvard Medical School. This took place at the annual conference of the Global Association of South Asian Physicians, adding a significant level of sophistication and prestige to the project.
The ‘Artist as Healer’ project under Maitreyi’s leadership, aimed to awaken the beauty inherent in science and the science inherent in art. In a time of unsettling global events, Maitreyi emphasized the importance of spreading healing integrative wisdom from ancient cultures and being custodians of knowledge that could otherwise be lost due to overemphasis on symptomatic treatment rather than addressing root imbalances.
ABOUT MAITREYI
Maitreyi straddles the worlds of the arts and healing. She is a trained filmmaker with a degree in visual communications, as well as an international master yoga teacher, practical mystic, and founder of Arkaya Awareness Centre and Arkaya Foundation. Maitreyi’s journey in the world of yoga has been noteworthy, and her dedication was recognized with titles such as Yoga Chemmal (expert), Yoga Shiromani (gem), and Yoga Acharini (guide) in India. Her commitment to the practice led to her being one of the youngest individuals invited to the Advisory Board of the World Yoga Council in Europe in 2007. She had a global reach, sharing the deeper dimensions of yoga, self-management, and sattvic tantra to help individuals see and shift deep-rooted conditioning that is divisive, exploitative, colonial, or disrespectful.
