MINDFUL + PRATIQUE: ART AS A CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE By Alena Ahrens
alena ahrens
AT THE INTERSECTION BETWEEN CREATIVITY AND psychology, where the intellect and art collide, Alena Ahrens begins her work. After years in academia, Alena merges together the worlds of positive psychology, mindfulness, and contemporary art methods to bring new ways of being to those seeking health, wellness and creative expression. Raised in an Asian and Caucasian American family, with a first-generation Chinese-Thai father and an American mother, Alena’s childhood saw her growing up with exposure to multiple cultures. This gave her a deep sensitivity to how internal and external structures shape identity. It was her mother who first showed her the world of mindfulness. With a deep interest in Eastern thought and a long-standing practice in Transcendental Meditation (TM), Alena’s mother introduced her to a practice of a mantra-based meditation, one she would hold twice daily without fail. With exposure to such a powerful practice at an early age, Alena’s consciousness was given boundless space to grow, sparking curiosity and an approach to life that would later 18
MindBodySoul.media | Spring 2022
enforce her life’s work. During her college years, Alena pursued a graduate degree that would deepen her critical thinking skills. While studying the impact of the performing arts on psychological well-being, Alena was accepted to work alongside esteemed performance artist, Marina Abramović, at New York’s prestigious Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). During this period of her life, while pursuing expansion of the intellect and deepening of artistic expression, Alena came to recognize that it was her spiritual practice that contributed to her ideation and creative process. She started incorporating these principles into her academic studies. Alena began investigating literature on mindfulness and the arts. Her research
