On the 4th day of the youth exchange we organized art therapy workshops that were conducted by participants.
One of the workshops was Ikebana.
You can read what the participants said about the workshop:
Today,
in our youth exchange project we tried one special method of therapy art. It is
called ikebana. Ikebana is the Japanese art of flower arrangement. It is
practiced as an art where flowers and other natural elements are placed in such
a way as to embody harmony, peace, and beauty. The tradition of this art goes
way back to the sixth century AD. There are four types of ikebana: rikka,
seika, moribana and jiyuka. They are different in the way the elements are
arranged. The natural elements are supposed to represent the heaven, the earth,
and the human.
Dominika prepared a nice presentation about the art of ikebana and then she showed us
how we can make it on our own. We used pots, sponges and flowers and another
natural element such as sticks, leaves, little stones, and tree bark. Then we
let our imaginations flow and started to create our own ikebana.
The
first rule was “less is more’’. Dominika told us that the balance is important
in this form of art as well as in life. During the process we founded ourselves
in different states of mind. If it’s your first time doing something you can
feel frustrated and you can be scared of failure. And that’s ok. We needed some
time to ease up. We put some relaxing music on and eventually everyone had fun.
The making of ikebana helped us to be relaxed and to just enjoy the workshop
because our minds were thinking only about the activity that we were doing.
We
think we did a pretty good job. We are proud of ourselves, and we are happy
that we had the opportunity to try something like this. We also got connected with
nature because we went outside to collect the materials for the second part of
our workshop. But only picked things up from the ground in order not to harm
the plants. We were happy to make art with zero waste and with materials
everyone has around their home. All in all, this art is accessible for everyone
and everyone should try it at least once for the amazing experience.
How
everyone in the group feels about it:
Flavia:
“I can’t wait to do this again and definitely I’m going to teach my friends how
to do it too.’’
Dori:
“I’m thankful for this experience.’’
Horatiu:
“I’m looking forward to doing this again and showing all my friends the
arrangement I made today.’’
Denisa:
“I’m glad I could take part in this project because it is a form of art I
haven’t even heard of before.’’
Judita:
“This was a special experience. I was happy to have this close connection with
the nature and get lost in the process of creating something from the flowers.”