Forest Bathing a the Kemper Art Museum: Community Mindfulness Program: Wandering

Creatively engage your senses on a guided tour through the Danforth campus, ending in a slow-looking activity and visual journaling in the exhibition Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection.

Before stepping into the galleries, we’ll begin outdoors with a sensory-based Forest Bathing experience to awaken awareness and presence. Gentle invitations will help you attune to texture, color, and rhythm, deepening your connection to the art you’re about to encounter.

Just as artists observe the world with intention and care, nature therapy encourages us to deepen our awareness and tune into subtle details. This kind of sensory presence supports nervous system regulation and somatic awareness, helping us move from doing to being. In that quiet space, the mind is free to wander, wonder, and make new connections. These are the very things that fuel imagination and creative engagement. Slowing down in nature can change how we show up in other spaces too, including how we experience and connect with art.

Guided by Jess Thenhaus, a certified Forest and Nature Therapy Guide, this walk will explore the quieter green spaces of Washington University’s Level 3 Arboretum campus and offer a gentle invitation to slow down, reconnect with the senses, and discover how nature can shift the way we see the world around us.

🌿 What to Expect

• A short, guided sensory practice outside the museum.
• Mindful pauses to notice seasonal light, movement, and detail.
• A grounding transition from nature into the art space.
• Kemper Art Museum educators will then guide participants through conversation and creative engagement with artworks in the Museum that invite additional rest and rejuvenation.

Event is Free but registration is requested.
🎟️ Register Here >>

Sponsored by the Kemper Art Museum, presented in partnership with Urban Forest Therapy.