The Science Museum’s Cultural Events Manager, Scott McKenzie-Cook, responds to comments about an event in the museum’s forthcoming Illuminating India season.
This autumn, the Science Museum is presenting Illuminating India, a season dedicated to exploring the influential tradition of scientific thought in South Asia. The season will include two exhibitions, 5000 Years of Science and Innovation and Photography 1857-2017, a series of adult and family events, and some specially-commissioned artworks.
As part of our varied events strand for the season, which includes film screenings, dance performances and an event on India’s burgeoning space programme, we are hosting a one-off evening of discussion and debate between author and speaker Sadhguru and science journalist and author Jo Marchant in the museum’s IMAX Theatre.
Through yoga programmes and social outreach initiatives around the world, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev has created a worldwide movement dedicated to ideas of wellbeing.
With yoga, meditation and mindfulness becoming increasingly popular ways for people to combat the stresses and strains of fast-paced, hyper-connected and technology-filled lifestyles, we programmed this event to look at the mind body connection and how science and spirituality can co-exist.
Yoga has been described as one of the “ancient sciences”, but can it really be considered a science? And does the reality match the hype?
To cast a rational eye over these claims is award-winning journalist and author Jo Marchant, who has previously worked on New Scientist and Nature. Her book, Cure: A journey into the science of mind over body, was a New York Times bestseller, Economist book of the year and finalist for the 2016 Royal Society Insight Investment Science Books Prize.
When putting together our cultural events series to complement our major exhibitions, we aim to create a programme which takes in different artforms, encourages debate and discussion and appeals to a wide audience interested in culture, science and current affairs.
We believe that our events programme for Illuminating India will do all of these things and we hope that, in collaboration with the season’s exhibitions and artworks, we will help to share a global vision of science, innovation, thought and culture today.