Flowing with the Light Around Us

Thursday, April 11, 2024 | 1–2pm

ADMISSION: Free with Museum admission

2024-04-11 18:00:00 UTC2024-04-11 23:00:00 UTC America/Los_AngelesThe CJM - 736 Mission St, San Francisco, CAFlowing with the Light Around UsDuring this hour-long immersive experience in the gallery, artist Nkechi Njaka uses movement, conscious breathing, and a guided walking meditation to transform visitors’ interaction with First Light: Rituals of Glass and Neon Art and the neon works on display. Participants will explore the gallery guided by Nkechi’s prompts exploring one’s connection to self and the role of ritual in cultivating presence.

During this hour-long immersive experience in the gallery, artist Nkechi Njaka uses movement, conscious breathing, and a guided walking meditation to transform visitors’ interaction with First Light: Rituals of Glass and Neon Art and the neon works on display. Participants will explore the gallery guided by Nkechi’s prompts exploring one’s connection to self and the role of ritual in cultivating presence.

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About the Speaker

Nkechi Deanna Njaka (she/her) is a practice-based creative researcher, a neuroscientist, choreography artist, and mindfulness meditation guide. She is the founder of The Compass, NDN lifestyle studio, and co-founder of the sleep app DreamWell. Her work intersects wellness, science, art, and social practice. Through her work, research, practice, and study, she discovered that mindfulness and creativity are crucial for sustaining individual and global wellbeing. Her artistic practice is an autoethnographic in nature with threads of Black feminism, fugitivity, slow practice, identity, and the transformative power of healing. Nkechi lives, creates, and rests on unceded Ohlone Land (San Francisco, California).

About the Exhibition

First Light: Rituals of Glass and Neon Art

An exhibition by She Bends

First Light: Rituals of Glass and Neon Art explores mastery in craft as a devotional practice, presenting breathtaking works that connect both artists and viewers to spirituality, wonder, and universal questions of human existence. The exhibition features artworks in neon, glass, and plasma, large-scale sculptures, and installations that invite you to learn about fascinating scientific processes while inspiring deeper contemplation of the role of light in our quest to understand our place in the universe. Experience awe, make spiritual connections, and discover the science and craft of neon and glass artwork.

A glass and plasma crown from the exhibition "First Light"

Kamila Mróz, Well Done—What Was the Cost?, 2023.

Learn more