Artha Institute is a response to a new global socio-political reality and environmental catastrophe, where the divide within people seems deeper and respect for nature seems irrelevant.
However, on the ground innumerable efforts and actions are unleashing to refute this dangerous path and to embrace a different one, the one of values, respect and love. Artha Institute is an endeavor of this collective journey.
Working in the field of climate action and sustainability for more than a decade, being trained as a designer of spaces and products, and following my passion for fair and sustainable food as well as the traditional arts and the crafts, I began to realize early on that creative processes engaging hands and minds are critical in changing attitudes and actions to engender a unified, harmonious and respectful society. Having lived on three different continents and among myriad of diverse cultures for multiple years, I saw the need to develop a mechanism through which the richness and diversity within nature and cultures are not only easily understood and accepted, but also fervently cherished and conserved.
Connecting us all, while giving us our unique identity, are the creativity of our mind and dexterity of our hands. Each culture has its unique creative language expressed through its arts, crafts and design. Similarly, nature’s biodiversity is limitless and engraved in the smallest to the largest of its elements. If one is to understand the intangible dimensions of nature and cultures, then the tangible expressions of their creativity become uniquely valuable tools in the process of this discovery.
Hence, Artha Institute’s solution for this societal need is to offer education, advance application and undertake research of this creative uniqueness embedded within each of us, our cultures and our natural milieus.
