For their first Slow Art Day, the Glengarry Artists’ Collective, a volunteer-driven organization of artists in eastern rural Ontario, Canada, designed “The BIG Show”, an event highlighting local art and artists.
The Collective’s mission is to create programs focused on community, and they encouraged visitors to slowly look at a selection of 149 artworks by 39 artists. About 300 participants attended the event.
Slow looking participants at the Glengarry Collective Slow Art Day event, 2023.
Ahead of Slow Art Day, the Collective posted a promo on their website and printed posters for the venue.
On April 15th, they welcomed participants at the venue and encouraged them to use the following prompts when viewing the artworks:
Look Take time (5 to 10 minutes) and slowly let your eyes wander all over the work. Look at it from different angles and distances.
Observe Notice the colors, shapes, textures and markings on the surface of the artwork. Where does your eye focus?
Feel What words come to mind about this art work? How do you feel looking at this art work? Does it evoke any memories?
Share Share your experience of the work with someone or post an image of the work online with a word of reflection and #slowartday2023.
Slow looking participants at the Glengarry Collective Slow Art Day event, 2023.
Slow looking participant contemplating an image from a distance at the Glengarry Collective Slow Art Day event, 2023.
The hosts Alison Hall and Yvonne Callaway toured the venue, looking and talking with visitors. They agreed to let the audience choose the works they wanted to look at slowly, rather than imposing a selection on them. The photos above offer a sense of the engagement generated. They told us at Slow Art Day that, “There was lots of art talk, more than at most shows. People engaged with the works and each other.”
We love that the Glengarry Collective was able to bring out so many people in rural Canada and look forward to what they come up with for Slow Art Day 2024.
– Ashley, Johanna, Jessica Jane, and Phyl
PS. Stay up to date about events by the Glengarry Collective via their Facebook page
Participants were first invited to look slowly at the following five artworks:
“Enderroc” by Ignasi Aballí
“Rinzen, Subito despertar” by Antoni Tàpies
“Eco de una carta inacabada” by Elena del Rivero
“Movil Home” by Mona Hatoum
“Dialegs de Llum” by Josep Grau-Garriga
After the slow looking exercise, art therapists Aura Pizarro, Joaquim Basart and Maribel Perpiñá led the group in a facilitated discussion using gestalt psychotherapy, which focuses on one’s present life rather than on past experiences. Through the discussion, participants shared reactions to the art and discovered common themes of friendship, play, family, pain, and happiness.
Slow Art Day is founded on the principle of being present in the moment, and we at HQ love to see how MACBA and the Fundacion La Casa Ambar combined Slow Looking with Gestalt Art Therapy. The Fundacion La Casa Ambar also mentioned that they offer therapy to everyone, irrespective of economic means — and radical inclusivity is another shared principle with Slow Art Day.
We are excited to see what the MACBA and the Fundacion La Casa Ambar come up with for Slow Art Day 2024.
For their first Slow Art Day, the Museo Universidad de Navarra, in the heart of Pamplona, Spain, invited participants to look slowly at three contemporary works for art:
“Incendi” (1991), by Antoni Tàpies
“Untitled” (1969), by Mark Rothko
“El número y las aguas I” (1978), by Pablo Palazuelo
Antoni Tàpies. 1991. Incendi. 251 x 603
“Untitled” (1969), by Mark Rothko.“El número y las aguas I” (1978), by Pablo Palazuelo.Slow Art Day at the Museo Universidad de Navarra
The museum offered free tickets, which sold out in a couple of days – slow looking is in demand around the world!
The team at the museum reported that participants were excited to look slowly, share their impressions, and see through each other’s eyes.
Importantly, the museum itself enjoyed hosting their first Slow Art Day and plans to participate again next year. We look forward to seeing what they come up with for 2024.
The National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, one of the largest museums in North America, hosted its first Slow Art Day in 2023, with a simple design: participants were invited to look slowly at art in two rooms of the gallery before discussing their experiences together.
Slow Art Day poster. National Gallery of Canada
Slow Art Day participants at the National Gallery of Canada, 2023. Featured artworks: Kazuo Nakamura, Landscape, Spring, 1959. Oil on masonite, 93.6 x 121.5 cm; Kazuo Nakamura, August, Morning Reflections, 1961. Oil on canvas, 93.7 x 121.5 cm. Both paintings are located at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Respectively purchased in 1960 and 1961. Photos: NGC
On April 15, educator Andrea Gumpert and interpreter Valérie Mercier greeted English and French speaking participants in the Great Hall. After a quick grounding exercise and a collective slow looking warm up, participants were taken to two different galleries for their slow looking. They were given a few prompts to keep in mind during each session, including choosing to read or ignore the artwork labels.
Participants were first invited to select a piece in a gallery with only figurative works (Indigenous and Canadian Galleries – A110). They spent 10 minutes looking at their chosen artworks before sharing thoughts.
This was repeated for 15 minutes in a different gallery with a variety of figurative and abstract paintings and Inuit sculptures (Indigenous and Canadian Galleries – A112). After the second session, participants compared experiences from each gallery.
In the sharing sessions, participants remarked that their impressions of the works grew more nuanced as they spent time with them. Some found themselves asking questions about painting techniques or of the artist’s life. Two participants in the French speaking group requested to spend time with Riopelle’s Pavane, and enjoyed the exchange so much that they decided to lunch together afterwards despite not knowing each other beforehand.
In addition to the public group experience, the Gallery also suggested that participants participate on their own or watch the guided slow look of Rembrandt’s Heroine via a video produced by the museum. Several people on social media commented positively about Slow Art Day, and others wrote to the Gallery asking if the exercise would be repeated. A few staff also suggested the approach be offered on an ongoing basis.
The slow looking event was first tested in staff sessions at the Gallery in March prior to the public event in April. Andrea and Valérie ran the program with staff to 1) offer a team building exercise, and 2) test their approach and work out any kinks ahead of the public program. The staff loved it and later answered a survey, including this note from Dina Groulx, Corporate Relations Officer:
I genuinely enjoyed every minute of the tour […]. What a treat it was for me to have experienced that. As a remote employee, it felt very impactful. I really wasn’t sure what to expect when I signed up, but I was so glad to have invested time out of my day for myself. I also thought of how lucky I was as an employee to have had access to the quietness of the space (most of the time) and I realized that as the pilot took place on Monday, it created a calm retreat experience. It was so nice to go through that experience with colleagues outside of my regular work and made connections with them and with the art in a way that I had never experienced before.
Dina Groulx, Corporate Relations Officer
Taking inspiration from the National Gallery of Canada, we strongly recommend that other museums and galleries imitate what they have done and run slow looking sessions with their staff.
Note that the National Gallery of Canada also ran an effective marketing campaign. Their Slow Art Day event was featured in an article by Chelsea Osmond in the National Gallery of Canada Magazine and advertised on local radio stations. The Gallery also promoted the event via social media posts and in their monthly newsletter.
We are so glad the National Gallery of Canada has joined the Slow Art Day movement, and we look forward to the creative design they come up with for 2024.
-Johanna, Ashley, Jessica Jane, and Phyl
P.S. Take a look at these concluding remarks from educator Andrea Gumpert:
“Participation in the Slow Art Day requires little preparation, links the Gallery to a broader global movement and aligns directly with the Strategic Plan. The approach also benefits visitors by reported reduction in stress levels, improved concentration levels and a better ability to foster empathy. As the participants in the Gallery’s Slow Art Day expressed, slow and careful looking helps to unravel complexity, build connections and see things from multiple perspectives. Finally, since slow looking is inclusive: everyone can take part and no prior knowledge is required. For those who want to practice slow looking with art, no art historical knowledge is required giving confidence in one’s own abilities to visit a museum and to understand works of art for oneself. The Gallery is ideally placed to continue the annual Slow Art Day event and might consider further opportunities to host slow looking programs for the public as well as the staff.”
Andrea Gumpert, educator at the National Gallery of Canada
For their first Slow Art Day, Ellie Harold Studio and Gallery in Frankfort, Michigan, a small town of 1,500, hosted a slow looking event from 12 – 4 pm in her home-based venue. One of the things we love about Slow Art Day is that it happens in national museums, regional museums, movie theaters, and even local home-based galleries.
On April 15, Ellie Harold displayed a variety of paintings from her private collection, one large painting of her own, and a sculpture.
Photo courtesy of Carol Lautenbach.
Photo courtesy of Carol Lautenbach.
Photo courtesy of Carol Lautenbach.
Photo courtesy of Carol Lautenbach.
The whole town embraced this first Slow Art Day in Frankfort. Not only did a large group of people come out to view the Slow Art Day, but the local paper, Benzie County Record Patriot, also ran a substantial article.
For the event itself, the gallery handed each participant a sheet with suggestions for slow looking and a blank space and pen for writing down notes:
SUGGESTIONS FOR SLOW LOOKING
Gaze at a spot and let it reveal itself to you.
How do the colors make you feel?
Look at details.
Follow a path through the painting with your eyes.
Find different textures in the painting.
What comes forward and what recedes?
Does the painting take you up, down, or all around?
Look for rhythm or pattern.
Where in the painting do your eyes want to rest?
Does the painting have a message for you?
What else do you notice?
Most participants took 45 minutes to 1 hour to look at the pieces. Since the event took place in Ellie’s home, there was more artwork on display than what was selected specifically for the event, and some visitors chose to look slowly at those as well. During the event, Ellie walked around and discussed the experience with participants. She also later published a blog post: “Slow Art Day: Taking Time to Gaze.”
“Everyone reported having a positive experience and said that the exercise would change how they view art in museums going forward.”
Ellie Harold, Gallery and Studio owner
As we noted, we are always happy to see Slow Art Day being embraced by towns and institutions of all sizes and scale around the world. We welcome Ellie Harold Studio and Gallery to the Slow Art Day community, and look forward to their event next year, which will expand to include several artists.
For their first Slow Art Day, Sigmund Freud University and the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin in Berlin, which comprises seventeen museums in five clusters, jointly sponsored a Slow Art event hosted by Master’s students in Art Therapy Naira Bloss and Ulla Utasch.
The museum complex invited visitors to pre-register for one of two 150-minute long workshops held on April 15th:
WORKSHOP 1: The New Museum / Neues Museum. 9.30 a.m. -12.00 p.m.
WORKSHOP 2: The Old Museum / Altes Museum. 2:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Each session opened with a guided relaxation exercise, followed by slow looking at the busts of Queen Nefertiti (workshop 1) and Queen Cleopatra (workshop 2). Afterwards, the hosts facilitated in-depth discussions.
Bust of Queen Nefertiti c. 1353 and 1336 BC. | National Museums in Berlin | Egyptian Museum with Papyrus Collection | Sandra Steiß
Portrait of Cleopatra around 50-38 B.C. | National Museums in Berlin | Collection of Classical Antiquities | Johannes Laurentius
The sessions concluded with a slow drawing exercise, where the hosts asked each participant to create a design inspired by their experience in the museum, and reflecting on the impact of Slow Looking at art on their mental health.
Workshop at the New Museum.
At Slow Art Day HQ, we are so happy to welcome the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, and its seventeen museums, to the slow looking movement. We also want to thank Prof. Dr. Georg Franzen, Professorship for Psychotherapy Science and Applied Art Psychology at the Sigmund Freud University for supervising his students Naira and Ulla.
We look forward to what the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin comes up with for Slow Art Day 2024.
Arlee Theater in Mason City, Illinois, a locally-owned and operated art deco movie theater, which relies on volunteers to stay open, hosted its first Slow Art Day (and the first one we know of in a movie theater – wow!) with great success.
Exterior of the Arlee Theater in Mason City. The photo is from the Arlee website.
Ahead of the event, local residents were invited to submit an artwork to be considered for a slow looking session to be held on the big screen.
Arlee’s volunteer crew selected five artworks (out of the overall twenty that were submitted) to be shown for five minutes each before Saturday night’s movie screening. These replaced the normal pre-show advertisements, and were accompanied by brief contextual information about Slow Art Day to help orient people arriving at different times. You can view the five works below.
Following the event, a timed video of the artworks was uploaded to the Arlee website and Facebook page so people could participate at home as well.
Marcia Maxson Schwartz, who is an Arlee board member and volunteer, reported that they received a lot of positive feedback, including from visitors who rarely go to museums or galleries. In fact, by bringing art into the movie theater, Arlee is showing all of us how to bring art into the lives of *many* more people.
Further, Schwartz and her volunteer team hope to use this year’s success to create a citywide Slow Art Day in Mason next year.
“While we only had a couple of days to get things together, our team considers it a success and is looking forward to next year – we’ve even started the ball rolling with a store owner and the town’s librarian to coordinate events across this little town next year.”
Marcia Maxaon Schwartz
At Slow Art Day HQ, we love the pioneering efforts of the Arlee Theater and hope they start a movement of movie theaters around the world showing art slowly.
We also love the mix of kinds of institutions that are now participating in Slow Art Day – major national museums, regional and university museums, galleries, outdoor sculpture parks, avant garde art spaces, and local movie theaters in small towns. Hurray!
Art needs to be slowly seen *everywhere* and we thank the volunteers at Arlee for innovating a new way to reach more people.
We eagerly anticipate what Arlee and the town of Mason, which may host a citywide Slow Art Day in 2024, come up with for next year.
Ran Hee, the manager of the Choi Sunu House Memorial Museum in Seoul, Korea, hosted their (and Korea’s) first Slow Art Day on April 15 with the theme “Neurim & Nurim (느림 그리고 누림)”, which translates to “Slow and Enjoy”.
The event was jointly organized by the National Trust Cultural Heritage Foundation and Ewha Womans University Graduate School of Education participants majoring in art education, Kim Han-sol, Han Yu-jin, and Heo Bona.
Choi Sunu (1916~1984) was an eminent art historian and museum professional who served as the fourth director of the National Museum of Korea until his death. He devoted his life to define and propagate the beauty of Korean art and architecture through exhibitions and writings. The Choi Sunu House, where he lived from 1976 to 1984, is an expression of his aesthetics of simplicity and elegance, and has been open to the public since 2004.
Ran Hee and team created a three-part event:
First, curator Song Ji-young gave participants an introduction to Choi Sunu and his house.
Next, Bona Heo, Ewha Womans University graduate student, Yoo Jin-han, and Hansol Kim handed out question cards with prompts for slow looking (and talked about the slow looking movement).
Last, Professor Han Ju-yeon hosted a video viewing session and discussion with attendees (scroll down to see photos, as well as audio and video excerpts).
Visitors listening to the introduction of the Slow Art Day event.Curator Song Ji-young introduces the event.Participant contemplating the question cards.Flyer for the event.
The hosts prepared a few memorable excerpts from Choi Sunu’s works alongside a video. Participants were also encouraged to write a short note on postcards about their experience.
Slow Art Day experience cards.
Below are a few links to audio and text excerpts of Choi’s works (in Korean):
Choi Sunu, “Fruits More Beautiful than Flowers”
Choi Sunu, “The Empty Branch of Mid-Winter”
Choi Sunu, “Light Green Radish”
We at HQ are glad to welcome the first Korean museum to the slow art movement, and look forward to seeing what the Choi Sunu House designs for Slow Art Day 2024.
– Ashley, Johanna, Jessica Jane, and Phyl
P.S. You can also follow Choi Sunu House on Instagram.
For their first Slow Art Day – Slow Art Weekend, actually – the McLean County Museum of History, along with eight other downtown Bloomington, Illinois partners, held a Ready, Set, SLOW! event.
Hosted by Hannah Johnson, Education Program Coordinator at McLean, this Slow Art Day, organized with nine participating locations, was a true citywide event.
Inspired by the Downtown’s First Friday theme, visitors were invited to engage in an evening of egg hunting and art viewing at the Museum. Two posters were created for the event, including prompts for the attendees to consider, and small cards for each image were handed out. Literal and figurative Easter eggs were hidden in reproduction art works from the Museum’s collection for a Slow Art and egg hunt inspired seek-and-find.
We love the playful nature of their event design.
Below you can find examples of the various poster formats they used. Educators and curators around the world should feel free to copy elements of what they have done with their event (and posters).
Photo credit: Hannah Johnson
Original works from the Museum’s collection complete with Slow Art appropriate prompts were on display the entire weekend, along with an annual installation of the Clothesline Project in partnership with YWCA McLean County Stepping Stones.
Emily Aminta Howard, Painting of Grapes and Apples, Oil on Canvas, c. 1890/1900
Rupert Kilgore, Abstract Portrait, Oil on Canvas, c. 1955/65
Takashi Ode, Mountain Scene, Watercolor, c. 1980/90
T-shirts decorated by local sexual assault survivors were also displayed as testimony to their survival and the chronic problem of violence against women in recognition of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
The McLean County Museum of History traces its roots back to 1892, and is a nationally-accredited award-winning museum with five permanent exhibit galleries and two rotating galleries.
Photo credit: Hannah Johnson
We look forward to what innovative approach McLean County Museum of History comes up with for next year’s Slow Art Day.
The Gregory Allicar Museum of Art (GAMA), located at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, held their first Slow Art Day this year, which was hosted by GAMA Administrative Staff Members Madeleine Boyson, Theresa McLaren, and Lynn Boland. They chose seven works by five artists exemplifying a range of styles and media.
Kara Walker, Boo Hoo, 2000, linoleum cut on paper, Gregory Allicar Museum of Art, Colorado State University, gift of Polly & Mark Addison, 2009.2.21. [A black and white silhouette linoleum cut by Kara Walker titled “Boo Hoo,” illustrating a crying woman holding a snake in her left hand and a whip in her right].Anna Bogatin Ott, Juliet, 2017, acrylic on canvas, Gregory Allicar Museum of Art, Colorado State University, gift of the artist in memory of Gregory Belim, 2018.15. [A square, pink painting by Anna Bogatin Ott with small hatch marks against a white wall, underneath a sign that reads “Scott Family Lobby.”] After Claude Lorrain, Le Sacrifice au Temple d’Apollon dans I’lle de Delos (View of Delphi with a Procession), ca. 1648-1650, oil on canvas, Gregory Allicar Museum of Art, Colorado State University, gift of Larry Hartford & Torleif Tandstad, 2016.1.16. [A view of a large, gold-framed painting against a green wall, featuring a large tree in the center, many small figures in the foreground, and a temple in the background.]Unidentified Tibetan Artist, Vestment Cabinet, ca. 1840 (Qing Dynasty), paint on pine, Gregory Allicar Museum of Art, Colorado State University, gift of Larry Hartford & Torleif Tandstad, 2016.1.126. [An ornate, multicolored vestment cabinet by an unidentified Tibetan artist from the 19th century, traditionally used to store liturgical garments and articles associated primarily with the Christian religion.]Enrique Chagoya, Linda maestra!, Ni mas ni menos, and Se repulen from The Return to Goya’s Caprichos, 1999, etching and aquatint on paper, Gregory Allicar Museum of Art, Colorado State University, gift of Polly & Mark Addison, 2005.144.8, 2005.144.3 and 2005.144.7 [A view of three framed works from Enrique Chagoya’s series “A Return to Goya’s Caprichos” against a red wall.]
Museum staff approached visitors with a short handout (see below) detailing instructions on how to find the works, prompts for slow looking, and an invitation to discuss amongst themselves, with a staff member, or in larger, more “formal” discussions at 11:30am & 3pm.
Note: Educators or curators might want to copy this simple flyer for their own slow looking events.
After participants finished their slow looking sessions, the museum provided bottled water and light refreshments in the lobby (nice touch!).
We look forward to seeing what they come up with for next year.
