Expanding on Peace

In November of 2017, we were approached by Mumbai-based architects Samuel Barclay and Anne Geenen to discuss the Avasara School, a sustainably designed school for girls in Pune, India that they were in the midst of building. Both Barclay and Geenen hold a shared belief that objects and spaces deeply impact one’s relationship with the world — a belief not dissimilar to what sparked my father’s dream to begin the Nakashima Foundation for Peace.

By Februray, 2018 we were invited to visit the school (already in active use), to see how we might be able to contribute. Though they had access to a number of their own free-form flitches, as Jon and I met the girls who were studying so earnestly and joyfully in their school still under construction, it became clear; the most meaningful way we could contribute would be to create a small Peace Table as the center for a quiet meditation room on the busy campus. We returned to New Hope to find the right boards to inspire sketches and, thus, a meditation space was designed around the mini-peace table.

Much work is being done to extend the voice of the Avasara School, beginning with an installation at the Biennale in Venice, May 2018, where we were asked to ship the table. It remained there all summer before traveling elsewhere in Europe and eventually will arrive home in Pune.

As one of the large Peace Altars has been in Auroville, India since 1996, this will be the first satellite Altar for Peace to expand our mission of peace around the globe.