A group of seniors from Piwniczna-Zdrój (120 km south-east from Kraków) participated in a 2-day workshop using practical art for seniors. Workshops were led by Anna Jarzębska, a trainer from Fundacja Mapa Pasji. Designing mandalas is one of techniques proposed within practical art methods of seniors activation presented within the ITOSA project.
Description
The main objective of the workshop was to design a mandala based on local cultural heritage and promoting the community of Piwniczna-Zdrój. Local cultural heritage of Piwniczna and surroundings is very rich: an ethnographic group of Poprad Highlanders lives here (having their own regional clothes, dialect, traditions, music, dances etc.).
On the first day (April 24th, 2025) the idea of the ITOSA project was presented and an example of an interesting mandala designed to promote local heritage of Flekkefjord in Norway was presented to the participants. Next we started brainstorming on places, people, events, words, objects that are important for the local community and should be placed in mandala as a symbol of Piwniczna-Zdrój. In the next part of the workshops seniors started to draw different symbols that could be used in the mandala which we discussed.
The next day (April 25th, 2025) we continued drawing activities but this time we focused on putting them together to create the mandala. In the final part we discussed how the mandala would be then improved and used for promoting the community and culture of Piwniczna-Zdrój.
Seniors appreciated the workshops, found them interesting, inspiring and relaxing. Some seniors were a bit reluctant to draw at the beginning but when they started, they admitted they really enjoyed it!
Follow-up
After the workshops we still need to develop in a professional, graphic way the mandala that we designed together with seniors. This next step requires a bit effort but this is to be done soon, since the idea of the mandala is really well developed!
