SD Arts – The Art of Self-Discovery: A Practice for System Change

Gain insight into how restoring the communal self and art are a contribution to the necessary global system change. For 12 days we’ll practice how to increase a field of trust through artistic self-discovery (SD), and train the transformation from a separated self towards a communitarian self as a part of sacred activism.

Overview

We invite you to a creative and experimental space, where we’ll use artistic tools to explore inner transformations and their relationship to global system change. We want to recognize how our daily struggles are intimately connected to one another and to the world situation, and become empowered through art, stepping toward collective liberation. We will consciously use the art of expression, play, “gestalting” and performance to confront the existing systems within and outside of us to step out of daily normality, to experience the trust-building power of community, and to awaken the consciousness of a global self.

What is SD​​ Arts?
SD Arts is the art of self-discovery (SD), self-revelation and transformation as a political practice toward system change. SD​​ Arts empowers people to consciously liberate and transform suppressed life energies through artistic, creative and vital forms of expression. SD​​ Arts is a practice of sacred activism that proactively aims to reveal and dismantle deep-rooted systemic conditioning and bring people closer to the unfolding and integration of life energies that live within them.

SD​​ Arts moves with research questions like:

• How can we be with collapse, uncertainty and impermanence in ways that increase connection and vitality, rather than fear and powerlessness?
• How can the conscious expression of suppressed life energies through art, play and “gestalting” be a contribution to the necessary global system change?
• How can we discover a self that has access to the inherent intelligence of life and that lies beyond our social conditioning and anthropocentrism?
• What are the principles of community that empower us to face the individual and collective crisis?

Who is the course for?

• peace workers
• community builders
• activists
• artists
• group facilitators
• researchers of inner and outer system change

What you’ll learn

• Stepping Out of Normality
  We want to collectively step out of our usual thinking patterns and habitual ways of speaking and acting. This venture requires the willingness of each participant to step beyond their “personal identity” and “comfort zone” and step into a conscious space of observation and chaos to allow new insights to enter – as individuals and as a group. We’ll face varying forms of resistance stemming from our isolated fearful ego and our embodied conditioning. We’ll open training spaces that will help us to express ourselves beyond these conditionings and the limitations of polite conversation that we’re usually confined by. For this we’ll use tools of theater – improvisation, creating characters, humor, exaggeration, play – to bring consciousness to serious issues that need transformation and healing.
• The Power of Community
  SD​​ Arts does not center individual healing. It addresses different aspects of humanity that are represented through individuals. By discovering and revealing them in a communitarian setting, we create the potential and possibility of a collective transformation process. The foundation for this collective transformation process is actively creating a communitarian body that aims to be free of judgment and is based on transparency and trust. One of the practices to open these spaces will be SD Forum.
• The Global Self
  Extreme individualism, disconnectedness and separation of the self are key conditionings of modernity and patriarchy. This internalized limitation of ourselves gives capitalism and other interlocking systems of oppression the possibility that patterns of competition, destruction and violence become a “normal” part of ourselves and of society. We want to open spaces where we experience a wider sense of the self. We’ll practice forms of bioenergetic liberation of our bodies, minds and hearts in order to experience universal forms of existence that brings us in touch with our senses, our potential and touches a self that deeply cares for the well-being of all of life on Earth.

Course content

• Lectures with Q&A and conversations
• Theater exercises (background in “physical theater”)
• Experiential spaces for perception beyond the verbal and visual
• Experiential spaces to step out of usual habits and to step into conscious “chaos”
• SD Forum

Criteria for participation

• Openness to enter an experimental space, to transform yourself (mind, body, heart) and the group through embodied playful, artistic expression.
• Willingness to step out of your comfort zone into to your learning zone, confront inner resistance and hold discomfort.
• Readiness to bear witness to the challenges of our world.
• Allowing the purpose of this course, your own intention and your learning goals (that you’ll formulate in the beginning of the course) to be your guide.
• Practice transparency, radical acceptance, inclusion and mutual support.
• Practice consent culture – awareness, acceptance and accountability with physical, emotional and energetic boundaries.
• Sharing responsibility for the quality of our common spaces.
• Committing to self-responsible participation before, during and after the course.