According to the visitor experience team at Tate Modern, Slow Art Day 2019 was “fantastic.”
Participants slowly looking at The Snail by Henri Matisse
They organized two one-hour slow looking sessions split between two artworks and, then, after the sessions, the team invited the visitors to come together for tea, coffee, biscuits, and a discussion about the whole experience.
Here’s what some of the participants said:
“A really interesting session. I’m more mindful of how to observe art in the future.”
“What a wonderful idea!
“I understand now how you can spend so much time in a gallery looking at art!”
“The combination of looking at art slowly and with other people is a real eye opener.”
“Really like the concept. As someone who can feel a bit intimidated by the art world this felt like a really nice way in and gives me more confidence to engage with art in the future.”
“A brilliant concept, lovely to think that this is going on all around the world.”
“I will definitely bring friends next time. Do it again!”
“I felt like a part of a group/community and was an hour well spent.”
“We can’t wait for next year to do it again,” said Adriana Oliveira, Visitor Experience Manager there at Tate Modern.
On April 13th, Andrea Gumpert, Gallery Educator, and Marie-Pierre Adam, Interpreter-Guide, hosted the National Gallery of Canada’s second Slow Art Day, and reported that it was a resounding success.
The Gallery provided three options for participation this year: – an in-person guided group experience – slow-looking “on your own” with provided handout (shown below) – slow-looking from home using a guided video
And participants were given the option to participate in either French-language or English-language sessions.
For the in-person guided event, hosts Andrea Gumpert and Marie-Pierre Adam greeted participants next to the below Slow Art Day signage in their Great Hall.
The in-person event was divided in two parts (that each of the French and English speaking groups followed).
For Part 1, Andrea led the 13 participants in the English-speaking group to the Indigenous and Canadian later galleries, and Marie-Pierre led the 11 French-speaking participants to the European baroque galleries. They each then invited their participants to select one artwork and spend 10 minutes looking slowly at it. After the 10 minutes, they regrouped and discussed the experience.
Across the two groups, participants commented on how much more they noticed about the art when they gave themselves permission to really spend time with it – a seemingly obvious but nonetheless revelatory experience. Participants also said the group setting was helpful, particularly for the younger attendees (11 and 14 years old.) People also told stories about the works, and contemplated the technical skills behind the art.
For Part II, the English-speaking group moved to the Contemporary galleries while the French-speaking group moved to the later modern galleries. This time Andrea and Marie-Pierre suggested three optional challenges: 1. Spend 15 minutes with one artwork 2. Select a work that you didn’t have an immediate affinity for 3. Draw or write while spending time with the work
They then had a second discussion with each group.
The French-speaking group in the modern gallery appreciated the chance to express themselves on paper; either by drawing or writing their ideas. Some participants expressed that the second round of slow looking was easier – that slow looking felt like a muscle that needs to be warmed up first. One participant who chose a work they would not have normally looked at shared that their slow looking revealed parts of the painting they thought were wonderful after all – and raised many questions around the choices made by the artist at that time in their career.
At the end of the day, participants provided feedback.
Here are two quotes, one from the English-speaking group and one from the French-speaking group (i.e., these are not translations from one to the other – but separate quotes):
The slow art English session was a welcome new approach for me to viewing art. Our guide was informed and fun, and she explained the process well. I am sure I will use this approach on my own sometimes at art galleries, and elsewhere. Thank you for offering it — it is a good middle place between a tour with a guide and a hands-on activity.
Bonjour à toute l’équipe, je profite de ce courriel pour vous remercier pour l’organisation de l’activité Slow Art de samedi dernier. J’ai une la chance de participer à cet événement en présence de Marie-Pierre et du groupe pour les personnes francophones. J’ai fait plusieurs apprentissages dans un environnement paisible et vraiment intéressant ! Merci pour votre dévouement à rendre l’art accessible et respectueux ! Je vous en suis très reconnaissante ! Je souhaite une longue vie au Musée des Beaux-Arts du Canada !
We are glad to say that The Gallery is now planning regular slow looking sessions throughout the year (we love that!) as well as participating in Slow Art Day 2025.
For their fifth Slow Art Day, The Gardiner Museum in Toronto, Canada, invited the public to a mindful exploration of the exhibition Magdalene Odundo: A Dialogue with Objects between 11am – 1pm.
Magdalene Odundo: A Dialogue with Objects. Photo: Toni HafkenscheidMagdalene Odundo: A Dialogue with Objects. Photo: Jack McCombe
On Slow Art Day, participants were provided with guided activity sheets (see below) designed to facilitate slow looking. The handout prompted participants to think of how the objects were “talking” to them.
Participants were also encouraged to discuss their experiences either with each other, or with Sofia Flores-Ledesma, Education and Program Coordinator, who was available throughout the event.
Participants looking slowly at the exhibition for Slow Art Day 2024. Photo: Sofia Flores-Ledesma.
Below you can see the activity sheet (and feel free to copy any of what they have done there). The downloadable file also includes a few examples of how participants used the sheet to draw and comment.
The exhibition was the first and largest collection of Dame Magdalene Odundo’s works presented in North America, showcasing decades of her art. Magdalene Odundo (born 1950) first trained as a graphic artist in her home country of Kenya before moving to the United Kingdom to take a foundation course at the Cambridge School of Art. In 1976, Odundo graduated in Ceramics, Photography and Printmaking from the University for the Creative Arts, Farnham, UK. For more information about Obundo’s work and life, we invite you to look at The Gardiner Museum’s exhibition page.
The Gardiner Museum always hosts beautiful Slow Art Day events, and we look forward to whatever they come up with for Slow Art Day 2025.
Meditation session at Moderna Museet Malmö for Slow Art Day 2024. Photo: Modena Museet
On April 13, 2024, Ana María Bermeo, a certified meditation teacher, artist and museologist, prepared the gallery with floor-cushions and chairs, and the limited spaces quickly filled up with enthusiastic slow lookers.
Bermeo aimed to help participants feel more present in the moment – with the art and themselves – and free themselves from the demands of immediacy. No prior knowledge of slow looking or meditation was needed. She emphasized that slowing down with the art was a way to “get in touch with your inner world,” for which the exhibition of Sjöö’s art was well suited.
Monica Sjöö (1938-2005) was an influential feminist artist whose work is part of the alternative spirituality that emerged during the 1970s in opposition to the patriarchy, traditions, and institutional religion. Many of her paintings refer to British ancient cult sites, such as Avebury, and areas that Monica Sjöö made spiritual pilgrimages to and became inspired by.
Monica Sjöö linked many of her ideas to The Great Mother, a figure that is found in many cultures throughout history. For Sjöö, the essence of The Great Mother was present in all phases of life, as an experience that imbues both nature and being. She saw the oppression inflicted on women and minorities, and the exploitation of green areas and the ravaging of nature, as violence against The Great Mother. In this way, her commitment to the women’s movement, environmentalism and her spiritual convictions were related.
At Slow Art Day HQ, we are inspired by the ways in which Sjöö’s background and art highlight important issues, including the socio-cultural position of women, environmental concerns, and spirituality (with and without organized religion).
We can’t wait to see what Moderna Museet in Malmö comes up with for their third Slow Art Day in 2025.
-Johanna, Ashley, Jessica Jane, and Phyl
P.S. And given that one of us is Swedish (Johanna) it’s always wonderful to see how much Sweden’s art world has embraced Slow Art Day.
For their 4th Slow Art Day, the TarraWarra Museum of Art in Healesville, Australia, organized an interactive mindful workshop where visitors could enjoy the art of relaxation while observing and appreciating art.
The museum’s Learning & Engagement team guided a small group of participants through a 1.5 hour interactive workshop that was comprised of mindful techniques such as automatic journaling, body awareness, breathing and visualizations. The goal was to deepen their connection with their lived experiences and with their relationship with the art on display.
Participant engaging in slow looking. Image Credits: Tourism Australia.
We are happy to see that mindfulness and meditation continue to be a growing part of the global slow looking toolkit.
And given that we are big fans of TarraWarra here at Slow Art Day HQ, we are eager to see what they come up with for Slow Art Day 2025.
P.S. Stay up to date with events at TarraWarra Museum through Instagram and Facebook
Art at St Vincent’s – St Vincent’s Hospital, in Melbourne, Australia, is leading the way in coming up with innovative approaches to slow looking in a hospital environment. This year, they designed six “slow art cards” with photos of works from their St Vincent’s Art Collection – and on the back of each card they printed brief instructions guiding participants in looking slowly at the art featured on the front.
What a great way to bring art, and the art of slow looking, into all the corners of a hospital. We hope that many more hospitals around the world copy St. Vincent’s. Too often, the art in a hospital is not accessible to many patients. To that point, St. Vincent’s distributed the cards broadly to both staff and patients in Pain Management, Pastoral Care, Correctional Services and Palliative Care.
Below is the view of the back side of the card with the instructions:
Below are the front sides of the six cards. Note that the event organizers made sure that the art reflected the diversity of St. Vincent’s hospital community, which is why they included artists from a variety of backgrounds.
Rod McNicol, Maryan, 2010, digital print, St Vincent’s Art Collection.
Chris Delamont, Walu-win Girri (Healthy Future), 2020, oil on canvas. On loan to St Vincent’s Art Collection
Boman Ali Wakilzada, Songs of Wisdom, 2016, oil on canvas, St Vincent’s Art Collection
Kevin Todd, Tetouan #4, 2019, acrylic on mdf panels, St Vincent’s Art Collection.
Artist Unknown, Tarantella Dancers, marquetry inlay, St Vincent’s Art Collection.
Conrad Clark, Asylum, 2016, acrylic on canvas, St Vincent’s Art Collection
At Slow Art Day HQ we are really impressed with the creativity of the staff at St. Vincent’s Hospital. This is a great way to enhance the healing environment and support both patients and staff.
We look forward to many more hospitals around the world copying the ingenuity of the team at St. Vincent’s and can’t wait to see what they come up with for Slow Art Day 2025!
For their third Slow Art Day, the Art Gallery at Evergreen in Coquitlam, Canada, invited visitors to look slowly at two artworks from their touring exhibition “Paths” for 5-10 minutes each:
Both artworks were part of the 2024 Capture Photography Festival Selected Exhibition Program.
Silas Ng, “Music in My Eyes,” 2020, site-specific installation at the Art Gallery at Evergreen, Evergreen Cultural Centre, 2024. Photo: Rachel Topham Photography. @racheltophamphotography
Still from a video featuring an interior pan of Sarah Anne Johnson’s “Woodland” across several window panels at the Lafarge Lake-Douglas SkyTrain Station. Woodland was presented at Evergreen in partnership with TransLink.
On the day, all visitors were invited to look slowly at one or both artworks using the below provided prompts. We encourage museum educators to take a look.
The activity was self-directed, but after doing individual slow looking, participants could discuss their experience with gallery assistant Kim Grewal, or were encouraged to share their reflections on Instagram. Before leaving, they were also invited to continue the slow looking experience by spending time with some of Evergreen’s public artworks, located only steps away from the gallery.
The exhibition “Paths” featured artwork by twenty-two Canadian artists, two of which were placed in focus for the Slow Art Day event. We’ll note that one of the featured artists, Silas Ng, is deaf, and explores this in his work. In fact, his featured work “Music in My Eyes,” 2020, encourages slow lookers to think creatively as they spend time with the art.
We look forward to seeing what Art Gallery Evergreen comes up with for Slow Art Day 2025.
– Johanna, Ashley, Jessica Jane, and Phyl
P.S. Stay up to date with events at Art Gallery Evergreen through their Instagram or Facebook.
For their first Slow Art Day, the Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, North Carolina, organized a self-guided viewing activity. They provided visitors with a flyer (shown below) which had a framework for participating and suggested artworks ranging from paintings to quilted art.
Flyer of the event
This is a great flyer/set of instructions. Other museums should feel free to copy anything they’ve done here.
We are glad to welcome the Cameron Art Museum to the Slow Art Day movement and look forward to what they come up with for 2025.
For this year’s Slow Art Day, the project ConectArte.Gestalt hosted 2 events across the city of Barcelona, Spain – one at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA) and the other at La Virreina. Both events had a Gestalt therapy approach and were led by Gestalt therapist and curator-producer Maribel Perpiñá de Lama.
In this report, we’ll focus on the event at MACBA led by Perpiñá de Lama and focused on five artworks by Daniel Steegmann Mangrané from the exhibition “A leaf in the place of the eye”:
Systemic Grid 126 (Window) (2015)
La Pensée Férale (2020). These are seven photographs taken in the Tijuca National Park in Rio de Janeiro, one of the most biodiverse and endangered rainforests in the world.
Breathing Lines (2020/2023)
Landscape of Possibilities (2016/2023)
Orange Oranges (2001)
The exhibition explores themes of impermanence, collective emotions, perception, fragility, time and space.
Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, Systemic Grid 126 (Window), 2020Landscape of Possibilities (2016/2023) and Breathing Lines (2020/2023)Poster.
During the session, Perpiñá de Lama invited participants to slowly observe the artworks using nine principles from Claudio Naranjo‘s Gestalt approach:
Live now, worry about the present.
Live here, relate more to the present than what is absent.
Stop imagining, experience what is real.
Abandon unnecessary thoughts. Feel and observe instead.
Express rather than manipulate, explain, justify or judge.
Experience displeasure and pain as well as pleasure. Do not restrict your awareness.
Do not accept any “should” or “would have” more than your own.
Take full responsibility for your actions, feelings and thoughts.
Accept yourself as you are.
The event was successful, and several participants left positive feedback:
“This workshop was a very eye-opening experience for me. I had never reflected so much on my own shadow and how it affects my daily life. The artwork really helped me to connect with aspects of myself that I normally avoid.”
“I was amazed at how powerful art can be in exploring how we are in the present moment. Seeing the images and then sharing my reflections with the group really made me feel more connected to myself and others.”
“This workshop made me realize how much we have internalized our shadow and how they influence our decisions and relationships. It was a reminder of the importance of confronting those parts of ourselves in order to grow and heal.”
“The combination of the images in the exhibit and the group reflections was very impactful. I felt very supported by the group to explore and openly share my thoughts and feelings.”
At Slow Art Day HQ we appreciate the innovative work ConnectArte.Gestalt and Maribel Perpiñá de Lama are doing and look forward to what they come up with for Slow Art Day 2025.
For their 4th Slow Art Day, Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre in Skibbereen, Ireland, led participants in mindfulness practices and slow looking at works featured in their exhibition “Adrift.”
Petrina Shortt, Public Engagement Assistant, ran a lovely meditation-guided slow looking session.
In case other museums want to copy her design, here’s what she did:
Introductions She opened the session with a brief introduction to Slow Art Day, its origins, and what to expect from the slow looking. She then led the group through a round of introductions, and reinforced that the event was not a guided tour, but a moment for each participant to spend directly with art in a relaxing and curious manner.
Breathing/mindfulness practice Petrina then led participants through a short mindfulness breathing practice, asking them to breathe in for a count of four, holding their breath for a count of 5, and releasing their breath for a count of 6. They told them they could do this with their eyes closed or while looking at the featured artwork “Memorandum for Humanity.”
Slow Looking Next she asked them to slowly look at the art, observing without trying too hard to interpret, and instead, focusing on elements in the work: forms, shapes, lines, marks, colors and textures. She also suggested they notice how their eyes moved around the work and where they rested, and encouraged them to continue to focus on their breathing – especially if their minds began to drift away from the work.
Shared observations After eight minutes of slow looking, Petrina asked participants to share their experiences. Most remarked that even though they had seen the work before, they noticed a lot more within the piece after looking slowly at it. All participants commented on how relaxed they felt. They were then invited to explore one or two other artworks in the space for 10 minutes, and reconvene to discuss their observations.
Participants looking slowly at “Chrysalis.”
The group then moved to a second gallery where floor mats, cushions, fruit bowls and water had been arranged across the room. All were invited to sit or lie on the mats and cushions, or take a seat on a chair and close their eyes. During this half of the event, Petrina led the group in a mindfulness meditation which included focused slow breathing and releasing tension. They were then asked to open their eyes and practice slow looking at the large ink drawing on the wall entitled “Chrysalis,” and then to move around the room and look at one more artwork of their choosing.
After the session, all participants were eager to share their observations about the artworks. Some spoke of personal connections that they found, and others spoke of links they made between other artworks that they hadn’t noticed at first. All participants commented on how much they enjoyed the session and would like to attend more Slow Looking events.
At Slow Art Day HQ, we love this design for Slow Art Day. While participants were offered information sheets about the art after the event, the focus was on building a personal relationship with the works and discovering how each other sees. This is exactly what we hope Slow Art Day will continue to cultivate – personal relationships with art and with art lovers across the world.
We can’t wait to see what the West Cork Arts Centre comes up with for their 5th Slow Art Day in 2025.
-Johanna, Ashley, Jessica Jane, and Phyl
P.S. Stay up to date with events at the West Cork Arts Centre via their Facebook, Twitter (X) and Instagram pages.
For their first Slow Art Day, the New Bedford Whaling Museum in New Bedford, Massachussetts, invited visitors to look slowly at their collection “Framing the Domestic Sea: Photographs by Jeffery C. Becton.” Becton’s layered visual images feature the maritime world, and highlight contemporary environmental concerns.
The museum took a simple self-guided approach to their Slow Art Day, which is a great way for any museum or gallery to participate.
They designed a simple and attractive flyer with slow looking prompts (featured below – feel free to copy) and also set up a QR code that took visitors to a discussion about the exhibit by the artist and his wife.
