Circle of Life Workshop: Where Nature, Art, and Local Practices Meet

Abstract The workshop Circle of life as an arts-based environmental learning links art, nature, and traditional and local culture and brings attention to the conservation of biological and cultural diversity. The workshop method is based on several years of experience and its central element is the application of plant specimens in creative artwork as a means of reconnecting with nature and local culture. The creation of plant artwork results in an aesthetically enjoyable outcome. During the series of workshop exercises, participants learn about plant species in their local context and collect and prepare these plants according to local practices. Fresh and dried plant artworks are created in a circular form, symbolizing the Sun’s path in the sky, the solar calendar seasons, and traditional ethnographic patterns where the circle is one of the most universal motifs. Symmetrical patterns enclosed in a circle reflect cosmogonic ideas about the structure of the world (Laime 2006). The circular form of ethnographic patterns also corresponds to the shape of the mandala, used in art therapy by Carl Gustav Jung to express the inner situation reflecting the transformation of the mind (Jung 2017).