VIVID FESTIVAL EVENTS
The Vivid Ideas Festival has always been at the forefront of showcasing thought-provoking programs, and the ongoing inclusion of workshops and sessions developed by Steve Pozel Projects for the festival’s lineup in 2022, 2023 and 2024 continues the festival's commitment to exploring innovative and experiential sessions to complement it’s core program of talks and panels.
2022, 2023 & 2024
The 2023 VIVID Ideas sessions , Coming to our Senses, sold out and garnered incredibly positive audience responses: "I just loved connecting with nature and connecting deeper with myself"; "full of wonder, joy, curiosity and delight"; "a great balance of exploration and guidance, which made the experience enjoyable and so special"
Tickets for 2024 sessions will be on sale in early 2024.
VIVID IDEAS FESTIVAL 2024 - Art of Deep Listening
Listening well is challenging for all of us.
Getting good at deep listening is a lifetime endeavour. Our habitually poor listening proliferates in society: in relationships between spouses, parents, and children, among neighbours and work colleagues, in civic life and between nations.
Deep listening at its best is about how consciously, deliberately and skilfully one listens.
Our attention span is on average about 22 seconds. Studies have shown we often recall only about half of what we've heard. Our attention is challenged by distraction and mind-wandering. We listen four-times faster than most people can speak, and we struggle to speak more than 15% of what is running through our minds. Our mouths and tongues just tend to work that much slower than we'd like.
The 2-hour session of reflection, learning and practice is held in Sydney's magnificent Botanic Garden. Steve Pozel and colleague Timothea Goddard, one of Australia's most highly regarded mindfulness teachers, guide participants through some key tools and frameworks for a deep listening practice.
Cultivating deep listening gives the ability to listen with less judgment, with greater empathy and with more directed and sustained attention.
The sessions show how listening relies on a commitment to self-control and self-awareness, and how quieting the mind and body can deliver the calm and focus essential to deep listening.
VIVID IDEAS FESTIVAL 2023 - Coming to Our Senses
Immersion in Architecture, Frank Gehry’s architecture at UTS
This multi-sensory mindfulness workshop took place at the Dr Chau Chak Wing Building at UTS, Gehry's only building in Australia.
Vanessa Lansdown and Steve Pozel developed and delivered this 2-hour experience to slow our experiential exploration, so that one could take in the buildings qualities including textures, form and space, through all the senses.
I liked the sensory session before we moved around the building, it really helped me respond to the building in a way I probably wouldn't have responded.
What a privilege to meet this building in this way.
Immersion in Nature, Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney
Vanessa Lansdown and Steve Pozel led a deep looking 2-hour multi-sensory mindfulness workshop in the heart of the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney as part of the VIVID Ideas Festival 2023.
The Coming to Our Senses: An Immersion in Nature program drew from various meditation frameworks and incorporated ancient contemplative practices and mindful drawing, Steve and Vanessa provided tools to expand one’s experience of the world as a means to combat the ‘sensory blindness’ that often creeps back into everyday life.
I liked connecting with nature and connecting deeper with myself. A perfect location.
I liked the freedom we were given to explore what worked for us. I felt guided but not distracted.
I felt so childlike again, full of wonder, joy, curiosity and delight.
VIVID IDEAS FESTIVAL 2022 - The Art of Deep Looking
The Art of Deep Looking labs illustrated how we change the way we perceive the world around us, and how that can amplify creativity and imagination in all areas of our lives. The sessions explored methods and practices that gave participants greater power to pause and be open to new insights and ways of seeing – often where the source of innovation becomes revealed.
Labs were delivered across visual arts, nature and architecture to develop methods of perception drawn, from centuries old wisdom alongside new techniques in contemplative and mindful exploration.The focus was on applying present-moment awareness to increase the depth and intimacy of sensory experience. Participants were led to see and understand how it is possible to cultivate the power to pause, and how to be open to new insights and ways of seeing.
Botanic Garden, Sydney Exploring the senses to intensify a connection to nature while nurturing the body and soul with Steve Pozel and Eva Papadopoulo, one of Sydney’s most admired and generous meditation teachers.
Frank Gehry’s UTS project, Dr Chau Chak Wing Building Building spatial awareness and deepening appreciation of the artistry of the built environment with Steve Pozel and Eva Papadopoulo.
Botanic Gardens, Sydney Developing creative mindfulness through drawing nature with Steve Pozel and renowned artist and designer, Julie Patterson.
Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney A session in discovering the wondrous ‘nonverbal language’ that exists between a work of art and the viewer with Steve Pozel and long-time art mindfully colleague Vanessa Lansdown.
