Art that mends · Slocan Valley, BC
People usually are not seen.
Chantal Robert, co-founder
The originals are made by hand over weeks of ink. Prints of them pay for free gatherings, the writings, and the small framed pictures given quietly to strangers.
Why we exist
“Global Symphony for a United World is dedicated to uniting humanity through the power of Love, Kindness and Compassion.”
The mission, in their own words
A non-profit society registered federally and in British Columbia, founded in 2024 by two artists in the Slocan Valley.
Find your way in
For years they have handed framed prints to strangers. Here are three, held out to you.
I could use something like this
Come to a free gathering, read the writings, sit with the art. Everything here is free to the people who come, and nothing is asked of you.
See the programs
I want to help it happen
Gifts pay for the hall, the refreshments, and the musicians. We cannot issue tax receipts, and we say so before you give.
Support the work
I want to bring a piece home
Frantisek's prints hang in homes across Canada and beyond. Every print pays for the programs.
See the collection
What happens here
The gatherings
Last April, three hundred people, two choirs and two gospel bands filled the Brilliant Cultural Centre in Castlegar. The concert returns Saturday, April 10, 2027, free as always.
Workshops and meditation
Guided meditations recorded by Chantal are ready to listen to now. Mindfulness workshops are planned, with dates to come once the facilitators confirm.
Music in the seniors' homes
Musicians and singers visit seniors' residences to play for the residents. The two of them fund these visits and want to grow them.
“Together, we are nurturing a more aware and compassionate world.”
Dr. Gabor Maté· physician and author of The Myth of Normal, from his message to the founders
The kindness prints
“We all need to start from within.”
Chantal Robert
For years, the two of them have carried small framed prints with them, giving them quietly to strangers whose kindness caught their attention: a flag person standing alone in the sun, holding the road for others, or a clerk who somehow made a difficult day a little lighter. Hundreds of prints have found their way into the hands of people they may never see again. Each one carries an image along with the words that belong to it.
Welcome to Global Symphony
Who they are and why the work exists, in their own voices. The film opens when you press play, and never before.
Made for GSUW · a minute and a half
Read the film as text
Frantisek Strouhal and Chantal Robert. Everywhere they traveled, they shared longing for peace, meaning, and a return to the wisdom inside each of us. Before anything begins outside, it begins within, in stillness, in listening, in the quiet turning of the heart. It is from this inner stillness that their journey began.
Through writings, programs, gatherings, and global initiatives, GSUW has emerged, an organization whose goal is to create spaces where people can slow down, reflect, heal, and rediscover what truly unites us. And so GSUW was born, as a living space for transformation, reflection, a place where inner stillness becomes not just a personal refuge but a bridge, connecting us to each other and to the larger symphony of life.
Welcome to the Global Symphony for a United World. Visit us at gsuw.org.
How the work is made
Gelatin, ultraviolet light, and the stag-foot brush
The oil prints began with a 4x5 camera and live models. Watercolour paper is soaked in a gelatin bath and dried. A digital negative is contact printed onto the sensitized sheet under ultraviolet light. Then lithography inks are dabbed on with a stag-foot brush, layer upon layer like a tapestry, for three to four weeks, until the image arrives. The impressionistic photographs are made another way, on 35mm colour film, several of the original negatives collaged into one image.
Gelatin
The paper is bathed and dried until it can hold an image the slow way.
Ultraviolet
The negative is pressed to the sheet and printed with light itself.
The stag-foot brush
Lithography inks are dabbed on with it, layer upon layer, for three to four weeks.
Made by hand, over weeks of ink
Prints of Frantisek Strouhal's oil prints and photographs. He is an Associate member of the Federation of Canadian Artists, and every print pays for the programs.
The Unrevealed Path
The Tree of Life
The Time Keeper
The River Within
The Golden Earring
The Flaming Revelation
See the whole collection67 works in the collection
The writing that goes with the pictures
A fusion of visual art, poetry, and reflective prose, written together at the couch each morning: art on one page, and space to pause and reflect on the other.
A third book is being written now. Both books live in the collection.
The words that go with the picture
Every picture has its own page of writing. As each line arrives, the part of the painting it belongs to lights up.
Shangrila evokes a hidden realm of peace and harmony,
as a lone figure stands at the water’s edge beneath a dusky ocher and slate sky.
In its quiet, meditative stillness, the work suggests an inner sanctuary,
an untouched place of balance and reflection within us all.
Art that mends.
Painting and words from the studio in the Slocan Valley
A few pages to sit with
New pages go out every month, signed by them both, for whoever is ready.
August 18, 2026
Authentic Self-Knowledge
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The Power of Connection
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An invitation to Contemplate, to truly observe
Most of us approach art through the lens of personal taste. We immediately decide whether we like something based on...
Chantal and Frantisek
For decades, the two of them have explored spiritual psychology and the many ways people find their way back to themselves and begin to heal. He was born in Czechoslovakia into a family of painters and has spent decades studying artistic processes that have all but disappeared from the modern world. She studied humanities and art in Montreal before turning her attention to different approaches to healing.
In 2024, they founded Global Symphony for a United World from their studio in the Slocan Valley. Most mornings still begin much as they always have: tea, the couch, and a few quiet hours spent writing, about art, about awareness, and about what it means to be human.
Neither of them is a clinician, and nothing they offer is intended to replace professional care. What they can offer is something simpler: art, writing, companionship, and the gift of time and attention.