In conjunction with Steve Pozel’s School of Life program, Understanding Mindfulness, a collaboration between Sydney’s MCA and TSoL was forged around the 2016 survey exhibition of Japanese artist Tatsuo Miyajima and his exhibition Connect with Everything. This was Steve’s first project to bring the frameworks of mindfulness together with looking at art.

The exhibition was Miyajima’s first in the Southern Hemisphere. It encompasses his sculptural works, rooms and environments, and performance videos.

Commissioned by the Art Gallery of NSW in October 2017, Steve Pozel was invited to create sessions for a community festival on health and wellbeing. Using meditation and mindfulness frameworks, sessions illuminated how to engage deeply with one artwork at a time. This program was adapted into a monthly series, with Vanessa Lansdown facilitating sessions from mid-2018.

Sessions involved works from the Gallery’s diverse collection (20th Century Modern to Australian Indigenous works) and from special exhibitions. The sessions were held before the Gallery doors open to the public in the morning.

This special exhibition featured some of the greatest masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The exhibition included exceptional works by Rembrandt and Vermeer the also featured works by Ruisdael, Hals, De Hooch, Lievens and Leyster.

Steve Pozel developed and led a program of contemplative viewing practices to explore the feelings and emotions that surfaced when viewing paintings. Paintings considered ranged from intense portraits and dramatic seascapes to tranquil scenes of domestic life and careful studies of fruit and flowers.

Coming to our Senses: exploring art, music and nature through mindfulness – was a four-part course developed for the Art Gallery of NSW, in conjunction with The Lady and the Unicorn exhibition from the Musée de Cluny in Paris . This multi-layered and multi-disciplinary program of sensory exploration explored elements of The Lady and the Unicorn tapestry cycle which thematically explores each of the senses.

Created and led by Steve Pozel, and supported by contributions from artist Lindy Lee and composer Stu Hunter, this program of sensory exploration, illuminated the depth and beauty of The Lady and the Unicorn masterpiece.

Art in Mind: modern art and music - a special two-part course, created by Steve Pozel that explored modern art and music in connection with the exhibition Masters of Modern Art from the Hermitage.

Taking a cue from Kandinsky’s association of art and music, the session explored the connections between the innovative sounds of modern composers like Debussy and Schoenberg, and colour-driven paintings by Monet, Matisse, Picasso and Kandinsky. The program was supported by art historian Josephine Touma, who provided additional context and historical insights.

Art & Mindfulness was created as a special program for the 2019 VIVID Ideas Festival.

Presented by Steve Pozel & Vanessa Lansdown it delivered 30-minute ‘taster’ sessions of the monthly Art in Mind program delivered at AGNSW. The program featured installations from The National, a major survey of contemporary Australian art.

The Sydney Opera House invited Steve Pozel in 2019 and 2021 to deliver a series of sessions that explored the art and architecture of Jørn Utzon. Sessions explored the shapes, forms, and textures of the main entry foyer, the extraordinary tapestry, Homage to C.P.E. Bach, that Utzon designed (2004) and some of the music that inspired it (Bach’s Symphony No. 3 for Strings in C Major). Vanessa Lansdown co-facilitated the 2019 sessions.

In 2021, Steve facilitated a further session exploring the architecture of the Opera House and its relationship to the surrounding waters. The session explored how looking at architecture can be enhanced through a deeper contemplative engagement.

Steve Pozel was invited by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney to curate and host a selection of meditation teachers to facilitate special sessions of mindful viewing of the Lindy Lee 2020, Moon in a Dew Drop, survey exhibition.

Sessions were guided by a guest meditation teacher who brought their own approaches in response to artworks in the Lindy Lee exhibition. Participants were guided through a series of exercises and discussions which brought forth the close relationship between mindfulness, and themes within Lindy Lee’s exhibition. 

Timothea Goddard, recognised as a pioneer in bringing Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) to Australia, led two of the sessions. Guest facilitator Subhana Barzaghi, senior resident teacher of the Sydney Zen Centre led the first session of the series.

As part of the VIVID Ideas Festival in 2022, this session at the MCA looked to investigate the ‘nonverbal language’ that can exist between a work of art and the viewer.

The Art of Deep Looking session on art featured Vanessa Lansdown and Steve Pozel leading a range of guided practices across a wide range of media - from Australian Aboriginal painting to a multimedia video installation work. The session created opportunities for present-moment awareness to increase the depth and intimacy of sensory experience and opening to new insights and ways of seeing.

The Art of Deep Looking architectural lab, looked to build spatial awareness and deepen appreciation of the artistry of the built environment through a sensory discovery process featuring Frank Gehry’s UTS project, the Dr Chau Chak Wing Building.

This session was developed by Steve Pozel and led by one of Sydney’s most respected mindfulness teachers, Eva Papadopoulo.

The Art of Deep Looking architectural lab worked with a multi-sensory approach to experiencing and understanding the building. Participants played with space, touch and sound to pause and opened to new insights and ways of seeing.

As part of the VIVID Ideas Festival 2022, three sessions were presented at the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney. The first with guest facilitator Eva Papadopoulo and Steve Pozel leading an exploration of the senses to intensify connection to nature, while nurturing the body and soul

There were two special sessions focusing on the development of creative mindfulness through drawing nature, led by renowned artist and designer Julie Patterson and supported by Steve Pozel.

These Art of Deep Looking labs illustrated how by changing the way one perceives the world – we can amplify creativity and imagination.

As part of the Brisbane Art Festival in 2022, internationally renowned visual artist Lindy Lee was commissioned to create the magnificent site-specific installation The Spheres. A work that was inspired by “symbolic gestures and processes that call on the element of chance to produce a galaxy of images that embody the intimate connections between human existence and the cosmos.”

Steve Pozel developed and led an intimate and contemplative exploration of Lindy Lee’s artwork, drawing on wisdom and contemplative practices that are centuries old. This delivered a focused way to explore Lindy’s work, by applying present-moment awareness to increase the depth and intimacy of the viewing experience.

Steve Pozel was invited to creatively direct and produce a special Coming to Our Senses program for the annual dawn cruise, as part of the 2022 Brisbane Arts Festival.

One of Australia’s leading mindfulness teachers, Timothea Goddard of OpenGround, to lead over a hundred attendees through a mindfulness exploration as the boat left dock and cruised the early morning hour up and down the Brisbane River.

In a world that always pushes the accelerator, this sunrise mindful journey explored methods and practices that created pause and openness to ways of seeing a new day unfold.

Vanessa Lansdown and Steve Pozel led a deep looking 2hr 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.

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.