Art is not only what we call art but every aspect of our everyday life, big or small
When Freideriki Papastavropoulou started to combine a passion for visual art and a love of yoga, she couldn’t have imagined the wealth of balanced synergies she’d establish just a few years later.
“Exercise and meditation clear the mind and give well-being and, as a result, your view of the artworks changes, you achieve greater depth and connection with them because you create space and time beyond the dust of everyday life.” When Freideriki was a student at the School of Fine Arts at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh), she met Naya Karnava, who teaches Yoga Science, and the way she looks at art and life itself changed forever.
In 2019, Freideriki joined forces with another four female artists and a curator to create Yoga Science & Art of Life, an organization with charitable character and action. From the second floor of the Teloglion Fine Arts Foundation of AUTh to the “Navel of the World,” Delphi, they have organized two exhibitions so far as well as parallel events and a performance. She notes that we will soon see more, all centered around experiential art.
The group aims to deliver cultural and artistic contributions through arts education, expression, and creation, as well as promote spiritual development with activities such as yoga retreats in Delphi and yoga classes in a museum. In yoga, the six women have found a path full of tools that expand their perception which, as Freideriki explains, helps an artist overcome limitations and see themselves unlock more and more of their potential. “Art and yoga are two paths to exploration, self-awareness, and connection,” she says, noting that yoga means union, linking. “I connect myself to the Self. Myself to the world. My matter and my spirit. What I Am with what I think, say, and do. From this comes healing. It’s the opposite of fragmentation and segmentation.”
Freideriki may be a visual artist but didn’t take long to throw off that label, because she found it limiting. She explains that the fewer internal limitations we have, the more we understand that life is much bigger and freer, provided that we remember why we do what we do. “There came a point in my life when I didn’t want the label of the artist because it became a barrier. It certainly helps you articulate and it’s a tool to advancement and useful, but the path of the Teaching of Yoga Science that I experienced along the way was what opened up the way and gave me a vehicle to that deeper thing that wanted to express itself through me. It reminds me of the reason and purpose of making art. It takes me back to the essentials when I forget.”
In her early creative years, the path to making art was very confrontational for Freideriki. But then, “Through spiritual Teaching to broaden perception, I realized that art is not only what we call art but every aspect of our everyday life, big or small. Before yoga, I battled myself. Now I’m making peace with myself.”
Art and yoga are two paths to exploration, self- awareness, and connection. Yoga means union, linking. I connect myself to the Self. Myself to the world. My matter and my spirit. What I Am with what I think, say, and do. From this comes healing. It’s the opposite of fragmentation and segmentation.
As time goes by, she notices her artwork evolve along with her. “It’s like leaving your footprints on a beach. They’re not all the same. They vary depending on where you’re walking, they say something about you. But the greatest magic is found in the experience; in the process of walking the path and evolving.” In her early footprints – her earlier works – she sees their truth. She doesn’t want to exhibit them but respects them. After all, her motto is “I walk toward what gives me a deep joy for life. Towards where there is quality, inner joy, along with the difficulties it always takes to find your strength.”
Chatting with Freideriki might give one the impression that she keeps – or tries to keep – away from toxicity, heavy news, and unpleasantness, instead inhabiting a world of color, drawings, exercise, and meditation. But that’s not true. She doesn’t live in a fantasy world and does not want to live in a fantasy world. “I consider humans to be creators, and their primary creative tool is thought. So, I try to have a choice over the thoughts I produce. On the one hand, yes, there are a lot of stimuli across the board, both positive and negative. However, I choose what I will produce back – what I will filter and give back to the world. If I absorb a negative situation and give it back to the world with the exact same energy, I’m not helping myself or the whole.”
She considers it a personal revolution to seek and share paths to improvement and inspiration, as she believes that the game of life is played on an individual level. “A person who lives and acts with trust in the Spirit, who explores their creative potential, who is in love with Being, and does not pity themselves thus opens the path to working as a human, for humans. This way, the person helps themselves and others, because the individual is also all of humanity. It has to do with the thoughts, words, and actions of the individual. Just as in a pond, the ripples multiply, you also affect your environment with your actions and attitudes.”
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