Sophie Sanders

Here and Now Mandala 2024

Sanders’ Here and Now Mandalas  2024 was a monumental installation and performance that took place in Keene, NH and coincided with the Keene Ice and Snow Festival. In preparation for the event, Sanders also created mandalas at Franklin Pierce Lake in Hillsboro, NH, where she has been engaging with the lake and environment for over 3 years. Sanders’ mandalas synthesize shapes and gestures from her visual art and movement practices to celebrated the sacred in nature. She transformed and responded to the Robin Hood Park’s wildlife and precious resources for the local community. In addition to developing large-scales mandalas up to 30’, she performed with the Peterborough-based Weather Makers Dance company and local musicians, Ezra and Owen Landis, to activate the installation in the park amphitheater. This event engaged visitors in considering the spaces of the park as an artistic canvas, celebrating the winter beauty of the landscape, and demonstrating how mandalas can be used to focus on a sense of the “now".

Here and Now Mandalas 2024 was presented by the Friends of Public Art and the City of Keene, and was awarded grants by the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, the Putnam Foundation, The NH Charitable Foundation, and the Kingsbury Foundation. Monadnock Food Co-Op contributed to healthy snacks at the event. MaXT Maker space inPeterborough, NH hosted Sanders as an artist-in-residence, where she created over 50 wood stencils.

Friends of Public Art operates under the umbrella of Arts Alive as a fiscal sponsee since 2014. You can see our workatwww.fpamonadnock.org.