SPIRITUAL WELLBEING

Money is not, however, the sum of everything that human beings need. Economists such as Richard Layard and David Lane on both sides of the Atlantic have concluded that money alone is far from a guarantee of wellbeing. Once people are past a certain threshold, getting and spending money doesn’t make them happier. Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson argue in The Spirit Level68 that once this point of comfort is passed, the acquisition of money increasingly becomes about competition and status-anxiety, which are actually antithetical to a sense of wellbeing.

As the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor puts it: ‘The individual pursuit of happiness as defined by consumer culture still absorbs much of our time and energy - or else the threat of being shut out through poverty, unemployment or incapacity galvanises our efforts...and yet the sense that there is something more presses in.’

People everywhere are in search of that something more, a greater meaning: experiences that move, touch and surprise them; that make them feel authentic, that cannot be reduced to usefulness or to a sum. Looking up at a starry sky, for example, the overwhelming impression you have is one of insignificance - yet paradoxically, the sight of millions of stars is also transcendent. It fills us with a deep sense of meaning. A brush with mystery has the power to transform us, to inspire a feeling of awe.

The eighteenth-century philosopher Adam Smith wrote that awe occurs ‘when something quite new or singular is presented,’ and ‘memory cannot, from all its stores, cast up any image that nearly resembles this strange appearance.’

Awe is transformative, in other words, because it challenges our mental models of the world and forces us to update them. It makes us feel and think anew. Awe might be induced by contact with nature, by a ritual, or by a work of art - by anything that inspires a subjective feeling that cannot be fully captured in words and must be directly experienced.

Art has been crucial to people since the beginning of human time. From cave painters onwards, people have looked to art to express the ineffable, to offer revelations, to dissolve anxieties and petty concerns, and to create connections with others. It might be argued that the power of art is needed now more than ever because we tend to identify less than our grandparents did with the sort of large, abstract collectives - class, occupation, religion - that once offered belonging, purpose, stories about life, something more, something bigger than ourselves. Those abstract notions gave meaning and, sometimes, transcendence.

The moments we find meaning allow us to step outside linear time. What matters is the intense experience of the present, when we find space to reflect on ourselves and what matters most.

These spiritual aspects of being human are often neglected in technocratic discussions of planners and urban theorists.

The art market is still very much dominated by something that you can have, something that you own... this obsession with owning something, I think, is evolving. And younger generations no longer have this obsession with owning something; they want to experience it.

Simon De Pury

Art auctioneer, adviser and collector, member of Therme Art’s advisory board.

Therme Art is a global initiative that sees the quest for meaning - for something more - as a central human need. Therme Group believe that spaces geared to reflection which allow people to unwind and relax can be transformative.

Art links humans to the natural environment, posing questions about what it means individually and collectively to be alive now, on this planet. Therme Art takes art out of the white walls of galleries and into public space, bringing people into the presence of work that reflects the connection between nature and culture.

Therme Art’s year-round programme engages artists, architects, scientists and philosophers. New commissions will make thrilling artworks available to much wider audiences, allowing citizens of all kinds to be in the presence of transcendence, of new ways of confronting and grappling with the beauty and challenges of the world.

Art is central to being human. It speaks to us of the past and the future, of loss and possibility, of suffering and hope. It suggests the existence of meaning outside of ourselves, of spiritual connection, of something more.

Therme Group sees spiritual wellbeing as profoundly connected to physical, mental and social wellbeing. Art and architecture are central to discussions around making cities human.