It’s not easy to describe the emotion felt when stepping into a clearing in the forest, a magical place, perfect for hosting the portraits of 111 Aurovilians who have passed away in recent years.

Set within Pitanga’s tranquil backdrop, this exhibition invites visitors to explore the interplay between natural material and artistic expression.

The first thing that strikes you about any exhibition of Priya Sundaravalli’s is the sheer fecundity and variety of her work which makes it impossible to classify her.

Aurodeva is an artist and art therapist born and raised in Auroville whose work displays a rich blend of creativity, introspection, and connection to his roots.

What do you get when you mix a seasoned photographer, theatrical flair, and nearly four decades of festive mischief? HAPPY NEW YEAR by Marco Saroldi – part photo exhibit, part autobiography, and entirely the cheekiest holiday tradition around.

From November 15th to December 4th, the Centre d’Art brought together two contemplative exhibitions: Pujasree Burman’s "Sacred Echoes" and Vasandan Virappan’s "The Symbol of Meditation."

Walking into the room of this exhibition curated by Art Service and CREEVA feels like stepping into a conversation in multiple languages – some loud and vibrant, others quiet and subtle.

Stepping into Deepti Munot’s Fragile Layers exhibition of collages at Centre d’Art, I was instantly transported to the sea-side rock pools of my childhood.

Hufreesh has had many exhibitions of her work in Auroville, but perhaps this is the most evocative so far. The paintings, in their swirling lines and simple colours, seem to strip away surface inessentials to reveal something deeper, something more inwardly ‘vibratory’ than the simply pictorial.

Between 29th January and 10th February, in the Centre d’Art there was an exhibition of drawings by Ongkie Tan, titled ‘Inky Onky’. Ongkie Tan’s art is sharp, detailed, with a whirr of strokes, mostly in his trademark inky black and occasional subtle colours.

A ceramics art exhibition by Priya Sundaravalli. Priya’s fifth pottery exhibition, set against the backdrop of the gallery space at Pitanga, was a breathtaking confluence of artistic skill and poetic sensitivity.

Dominique Jacques posed questions and changed the rules in her recent exhibition ‘Endless Game’. We’re used to visiting a gallery to see an art work with a little caption and then we are left to appraise it.

The Roger Anger Exhibition represents an homage dedicated to the artist's centenary, showing an extensive collection of drawings, collages, and sculptures.

Lisa Suchanek’s second exhibition at the Centre d’Art, titled Soft Self: Inner Multiplicity and Gentleness, unfolds as a captivating blend of art and introspective research.

Centre d’Art, Monday, three o’clock in the afternoon. About fifteen people are working on the photograph of the Auroville banyan tree which is spread out over seven metres in front of the large picture window.

‘Sharing this series is my way of taking a pause and evaluating my own journey, allowing myself to touch upon the core of my experience. In this collection of my latest work, several forms have emerged that reflect the serene atmosphere that surrounds my studio.

Jyoti Khare recently opened an exhibition at the Unity Pavilion, consisting of twelve paintings inspired by twelve poems by Sri Aurobindo.

In mid October, Aurovilian Frederic Martin Duchamp presented ‘Presence and Flow’, an exhibition of photographs from different parts of the world at the Centre d’Art in Citadines.

On the 25th of August, Charles Zanon opened his sculpture exhibition ‘Unexpected’, at the Auroville Botanical Gardens, where he showcased a collection of pieces in black granite that he had been working on over the past year.

“In the midst of the mountains, unable to hold onto their stillness, I was swept away. Only Silence remained. Tracing silhouettes of mountains became the mantra of my hands.”

There is an old British World War II saying of some people ‘having a good war’. Without denying the widespread human suffering involved in Covid19, I have been wondering if some Aurovilians are ‘having a good Lockdown’, which could emerge from people stopping, taking an in-breath and potentially reconsidering their life direction.

Death is a topical theme in Auroville this year, reflected in the numbers of those who have left their bodies in recent months. Mauna, who has for years compiled our community’s obituaries, has pointed out that half way through 2023, we have already recorded as many deaths (16) as were recorded in each of the two preceding years (17 Aurovilian deaths in 2022 and 15 deaths in 2021).

In 2022, Vishwa Chudgar, her husband and daughter spent a month in Auroville, before moving back to the USA. A little over a year later, the family is now calling Auroville home and Vishwa has started the newcomer process.

Krishna Das is a rock star of the sacred music world, singing the chants that he first heard in Himalayan temples over fifty years ago. On 12 February, his performance at the Matrimandir Amphitheatre opened the Science and Spirituality conference.

On 16th February, the Unity Pavilion was full. There was huge interest because it was the first time in the last seven years that residents had met in an open meeting with an International Advisory Council (IAC).

Auroville is a place of experimentation where the new can emerge and ‘something else’ can flourish. On January 19 and 20, in CRIPA, 70 children from Auroville schools, including Deepam school for children with disabilities and Auroville outreach schools, performed a one-of-a-kind co-creation titled ‘Every Soul is Unique’.

On December 10 and 11 the Auroville Choir, led by Nuria, presented an evening of a cappella ‘Spirituals and Gospel Songs’. These originated predominantly in the American South and emerged through the African American community’s experience and response to slavery and discrimination.

At a time of constant communal agitation, a little jewel of an evening slipped through and gave viewers an inspired taste of Sri Aurobindo’s creative offering.

The 15th August is always a special day in Auroville, but this 15th was particularly so as it marked the 150th anniversary of Sri Aurobindo’s birth and 75 years of India’s independence.

On February 19th, a remarkable performance took place at the Sri Aurobindo Auditorium of Bharat Nivas. Inspired by the poem ‘Is this the end?’

The second edition of the Art Camp took place in Auroville from 20 to 27 March. For a week, twenty artists from the community and all over India had the opportunity to work together in the quiet atmosphere of the Tibetan Pavilion.

The small amphitheatre in the Matrimandir Gardens was once again the site of a dramatic exploration of a spiritual search. A few years ago Aryamani staged excerpts from Sri Aurobindo’s Debate of Love and Death, from Book Ten of his epic Savitri.

The Akademik Genius Brothers brought us back to community theatre with a fun-packed evening to provide our annual dose of theatrical levity.

‘Message in a Bottle’ was an inspiring, well produced community play and a testament to the creative juices flowing in Auroville. Above all, it was great fun with a street smart kick at times.

From August 2-9, the 7th Auroville Children’s Book Fair was held at Ilaignarkal Education Centre in Auroville. This highly anticipated scholastic event showcases no less than 50,000 books in Tamil and English, specially selected for the young student audience.

The Auro Vidya Retreat, a branch of the Pondicherry-based Sri Aurobindo Centre for Advanced Research (SACAR) directed by Dr. Ananda Reddy, was inaugurated at its location near Auroville on September 9, 2018.

March 30th saw an unusual theatre production, an English adaptation of seven short Tamil stories by the late renowned writer, R. Chudamani. The Madras Players, Chennai’s acclaimed English theatre group, presented the 90 minute-long production as a seamless narrative of intimate peeks into the lives of orthodox urban middle class Tamils.

YouthLink celebrated Auroville’s 50th Anniversary by launching two of its projects, the Hive and the Joy of Impermanence.

The Sea Trashion show draws a crowd and the RE-CENTRE begins.

The Meditation and Water Ceremony

The 5th Auroville Film Festival was held from December 16-23, 2017. With more than 275 films screened in three venues, this edition of the Film Festival was the largest yet.

A few weeks ago a new biography of The Mother was published. The Mother: A Life of Sri Aurobindo’s Spiritual Collaborator is written by Peter Heehs, a reputed historian who has been a researcher in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives for over 50 years, writing biographies of Sri Aurobindo and publishing papers on related topics.

If the self-help genre had a naughty cousin who snuck a whoopee cushion under the seat of life’s seriousness, The Joy of Living Lightly by Fif Fernandes would be it.

This 280 page book is a tribute to Kireet Joshi composed by two of his close Auroville friends, Frederick Schulze Buxloh and Alain Bernard.

It takes a brave individual to write a biography of Sri Aurobindo. This is because Sri Aurobindo himself doubted the value of such an attempt – “Why write my biography at all?

Last year Prisma released a second edition of their 2015 compilation on the theme of death. As its title indicates this includes the ‘death of death’, exploring Sri Aurobindo’s passing and his journey into the unconscious and Mother’s grappling with the transformation of death.

Many people have met The Mother. Some were blessed by Her responding to their questions in writing. One of those is Frederick Schulze Buxloh, who first came to India in 1960 when he was 20 years old and then met The Mother for the first time.

As my partner and I were talking about the history of Auroville’s on-going crisis, she encouraged me to read a specific book chronicling the early days of Auroville.

On November 3rd, Dr. Ananda Reddy released his new book Sri Aurobindo: The Grand Synthesis at a function in Unity Pavilion in the presence of the Vice Chancellor of the Pondicherry University Prof.

Every so often a story comes along that captures the spirit of Auroville in a unique way, bringing to light aspects of its deeper purpose of transforming the world we live in to create a spiritualized life on our planet.

Paulette has published an interesting new compilation in celebration of Sri Aurobindo’s 150th birth anniversary. ‘Crossroad: A New Humanity’ contains extracts from “The Human Cycle”, “The Ideal of Human Unity” and “War and Self Determination”.

On the occasion of Sri Aurobindo’s 150th birth anniversary, Penguin India has published Reading Sri Aurobindo, a book that introduces in 31 chapters each of the works of Sri Aurobindo through the words of 21 contributors.

In the growth and busyness of today’s Auroville we can forget the many small miracles that contributed to its formation, those men and women of goodwill mysteriously drawn here, via dreams, books, synchronicities and all that chance entails.

For Claude Arpi, the Bangladesh Liberation War symbolises a promising uniting event. Claude is an Aurovilian, historian, and journalist, whose journey of historical discovery of Tibet, China, and the Subcontinent started with a visit to the Himalayas in 1972.

Manoj Das, who passed away on 27 April 2021, was an inmate of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and a well-known Indian author who wrote extensively in Odia and English.

“This book is offered as an explorer’s source book in the mapping of various psychological problems inherent in the practice of Sri Aurobindo’s integral sadhana,” is how Dr.

This small book is a recollection of J.R.D. Tata’s involvement with Auroville as well as a meditative reflection by the author, Frederick (Friedrich Schulze Buxloh), of his very special relationship with this great man, one of India’s foremost industrialists who in 1992 was awarded India’s highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna, for his contribution to India’s development as the head of the then largest industrial conglomerate.

Two of the most important, and opposing, trends in the modern world are internationalism and chauvinism, or narrow parochialism. Proponents of internationalism, of a world where countries are no longer divided by narrow nationalisms, often point to the European Union as a promising supra-national experiment.

Janet Fearn was one of the very first people to settle in Auroville. In 1997, along with her friend, Philip Melville, she decided to create a programme for Newcomers which would tell them about the early history of Auroville.

Awareness through the Body in the Kindergarten: First steps towards cultivating attention, relaxation and self-awareness. Published in 2021 by Sri Aurobindo Institute of Educational Research.

Some years ago, Vikas (Alan Vickers), one of the pioneer Aurovilians, brought out a slim anthology of Auroville poetry called 50 poems from Auroville.

Radicle Network is a fast-paced thriller by an Auroville greenworker, Paul Blanchflower, that takes a look at the world we live in and the current environmental crisis that we have created.