Tag Archives: FOTO Museum

Long Exposure: Slow Looking Photography at FOMU

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For their 6th Slow Art Day, the Foto Museum (FOMU), in Antwerp, Belgium, organized four virtual slow looking sessions featuring two photographs:

  • Lynne Cohen, Recording Studio, 1987.
  • Martine Franck, Quartier de Byker, Newcastle upon Tyne, Royaume-Uni, 1977.
Recording Studio, 1987 © Lynne Cohen, Courtesy Rodolphe Janssen.
Quartier de Byker, Newcastle upon Tyne, Royaume-Uni, 1977© Martine Franck / Magnum Photos.

Each virtual session opened with a warm welcome from a guide, and introductions from participants.

Without giving any details of the photographs, the guide shared each one and invited participants to look slowly and freely discuss their thoughts.

At the end of the session, all participants were guided through a mindful full-body check to reconnect to their physical surroundings.

Participants engaging with one of the photographs
Participants on Zoom

The participants enjoyed the slow looking and were eager to share their reflections, both about the pictures and the sessions.

“It’s a nice way to interact with strangers.”

Participant’s quote

“I was surprised that the time went by so quickly!”

Participant’s quote

“Nice food for thought with lots of different perspectives.”

Participant’s quote

At Slow Art Day HQ we are really impressed with FOMU’s commitment to hosting not one – but four – sessions in one day. Bookending each event with an introduction round and a mindful cooling-down activity is a great structure that we hope other museums adopt for a future Slow Art Day.

We look forward to what FOMU comes up with for their 7th Slow Art Day in 2022.

Johanna, Jessica, Ashley, and Phyl

Wonderful Webinar w/Belgian Slow Art Day Leaders

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We had a wonderful webinar with the leaders of the Belgian Slow Art Day movement, Katrijn D’ hammers and Tinne Langens.

During the webinar, they also showed this very good 4 minute video that they just produced about their mindfulness and Slow Art program.

https://youtu.be/8i-chOdBd_g

Background on Slow Art Day in Belgium

Turns out that Belgium has a wonderful central group – FARO (the Flemish Interface Center for Cultural Heritage) – that facilitates the work of museums, archives, and heritage libraries. FARO offers training, study trips, publications and was launched in 2008. Katrijn has worked at FARO since the beginning and has coordinated the support for Slow Art Day across Belgium from FARO since 2014.

She and her colleague, Tinne Langens, who is the head of Education and Policy Programs at Antwerp’s FOTO Museum, have developed (and are continuing to develop) a set of mindfulness programs that integrate with Slow Art Day but go much further in terms of the creation of new kinds of tools, approaches, and methods.

Enjoy the recording.

-Phil