Most museum exhibits hold the expectation that patrons are quiet and appreciative of the art and history around them.
Yoga: The Art of Transformation, an exhibit at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in nearby Washington D.C., begs for a different kind of quietness, one marked by introspection. The gallery is a Smithsonian museum dedicated to Asian Art.
You see, the exhibit is something of an interactive one. On certain days of the week, for $15, patrons can practice yoga amongst artifacts from hundreds of thousands of years of yoga history.
“It’s really interesting because yoga has been so pervasive in art that we have truly sublime sculptures. We thought there is really something different between viewing and doing. We though that this exhibit could serve as an introduction for people who have never done yoga, or could serve to teach people more about it,” said Debra Diamond, associate curator of Southeast Asian Art at the gallery.
Sophomore journalism major Erin Serpico visited the exhibit, however, did not practice yoga when she attended.
“I’m not proficient in yoga, but I attended with my sister, who is really into it. She enjoyed it because you don’t typically get a history lesson in yoga class. I thought it was really interesting too,” she said.
That, according to Diamond, is the beauty of the exhibit – the fact that it can teach someone so much about the practice.
Diamond has worked for years compiling stories, artifacts and works of art from Indian and other cultures to tell a story about yoga that is not often spoken.
“So many of the stories are surprising, like those about militant yogis and connections between Islam and yoga,” Diamond said.
Diamond went on to explain that these things are things new yogis, or people who practice yoga, like many in the United States do not realize. Nor do they realize that yoga started out as much more of a practice in the mind than the body.
“I’ve met people who do yoga and didn’t know it came from India,” Diamond said.
The classes offered at the Sackler hope to bridge this knowledge gap. Instructors select about three of the works that really move them. Then they build a class off of that.
Instructors speak about the artwork as a piece of art, but also in terms of what it means in in the present to yogis today.
The classes are set up to include beginners and more advanced yogis. Some even specifically focus on families.
“Everybody who I know has gone has said it’s very profound. [The class] makes this connection between the sculptures and what you’re learning. It reminds you that yoga is grounded in individual embodied experience,” Diamond said.
Yoga: The Art of Transformation will be at the Sackler Gallery until Jan. 26.