15th Sakyadhita International Conference Workshops: Eva Yuen on ZenVisual

Ways of Seeing - 2014 Eva Yuen Solo Exhibition

The Art ZenVisual workshop- the ways of seeing through sketching

Aim: participants learn about the cognitive process of seeing through sketching, which involves perception and conception, so to understand how to look into the intangible qualities of the objects and how to record such observation visually.


The workshop begins with a brief introduction of the relationship between art making and meditation touching upon some keywords such as awareness, concentration and absorption. It then carries out some sketching exercises to explore the aesthetic qualities prevailed in both meditation and art making, and to realize that a creative moment is a moment of consciousness, a manifestation of the infinite creativity of living and being.

Eva Yuen

Dr. Eva Yuen has had an eclectic life journey: at different times she has been a practicing artist, international exhibitor and curator, an artist-in-residence in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore, an active contributor to non-governmental organization projects, and, for more than 16 years, a teacher of Art and Design and specialist in phenomenographic research on creativity in the School of Design in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

She was invited to participate in the 5th Sydney Biennial in 1984. There, she applied innovative techniques to develop the traditional bamboo-paper-binding craft for contemporary contexts, especially relating to human struggles for liberty. In 2003, she built the archive of this particular craft for the Hong Kong Heritage Museum.

She was the curator, editor and producer of the exhibitions and books (Chinese and English version) of The Calligraphic Meditation: The Mindful Art of Thich Nhat Hanh. She described her experience of meeting the Zen master as being like an encounter with the holy being; what she perceived in him at that moment was his awakened self, his Buddha nature, and what he reflected back to her was her own capacity of being awake.

In 2015 she completed her MA in Buddhist Studies; the MA program, affiliated with the Postgraduate Institute of Pali and Buddhist Studies, the University of Kelaniya (Sri Lanka), is conducted at The Buddha-Dharma Centre of Hong Kong (BDCHK). Being inspired by the teaching of Venerable Professor K.L. Dhammajoti, she starts to conduct workshops titled “Art ZenVisual - Meditation with Art” in BDCHK in 2016.

Details of Eva Yuen’s work could be viewed in the following links:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFb2eEqWaTw 
• http://artscenter.web.nthu.edu.tw/files/13-1898-67785.php?Lang=en 
• http://artscenter.web.nthu.edu.tw/files/13-1898-67803-1.php

Learn More About the 15th Sakyadhita International Conference on Buddhist Women

The theme for the 2017 conference to be held at The University of Hong Kong is “Contemporary Buddhist Women: Contemplation, Cultural Exchange & Social Action.” This theme highlights the diversity of contemporary Buddhist women throughout the world.

For more information on the conference please visit the Sakyadhita International website and download a brochure.