Ceremony Of Self - Creative Workshops

Ceremony of Self is an interdisciplinary art project that guides participants through life's transitions using creative rituals, blending arts practice, mindfulness and community engagement to nurture personal growth and social connection. Led by creative producer - Eleni Kyriacou

As one of the artists chosen to develop and facilitate a workshop, Laura was given studio time alongside the other artists to explore her practice in relation to the project, before delivering a workshop to the community. She also documented parts of the workshops led by the other artists and ran a pop-up portrait studio alongside the sessions.

The workshop explored the relationship between participants and their photographic image. For Laura, Ceremony of Self became an opportunity to deep dive into her own artistic practice, exploring what she calls the ceremony of image, the way our relationship with our own image, in an image-led culture saturated by advertising, film and social media, can be complicated and ever-changing. She and her collaborators built a workshop that held a safe and supportive space for participants to explore their relationship with their own image, with their self, designing activities that invited them to prioritise feeling good over looking good, using meditation and movement to help women tune into their bodies through their senses. Laura created a playful photo studio alongside this, a space to explore lighting and movement and to encourage play in front of the camera.

"That space held a sense of support within the group, and the women felt a real sense of community, which I think comes through in the images. What if we prioritised feeling good over looking good?"
— Laura Sawle, on Ceremony of Self