Tag Archives: phil terry

Slow Art Day 2019 Annual Report

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As we prepare for Slow Art Day 2020, we have finished our 2019 report with host summaries from around the world.

If you would like to review the full report, you can
download it here (PDF – 14MB).

Highlights 

  • SFMOMA hosted a ticketed lunch and slow viewing session, which sold out 
  • Chicago Art Institute trained young people to be docents for Slow Art Day engaging young people in a new way that gives them ownership over the experience 
  • Brazil’s largest foundation of contemporary art, Inhotim, hosted its first Slow Art Day 
  • Toronto hosted more Slow Art Day events than any city around the world 
  • Many venues held daylong events with food, music, dancing, and lots of slow viewing (check out this video from Ur Mara Museoa in the Basque country) 
  • Multi-sensory sessions took off around the world (close to 25% of reporting museums did some multi-sensory work, as you can see below) 
  • Phil Terry, Founder, delivered a keynote about Slow Art Day at a Toronto inclusive design conference  
  • Phil and the team started visiting cities (Toronto and Philadelphia to begin with) to bring together educators and curators to strengthen the community and share best practices 

We also continued to receive great press attention including from The BBC, The Art Newspaper, Smithsonian Magazine, and many local and regional offline and online newspapers, radio, and television. 

Again, to read the full report including summaries from around the world, download our 2019 Annual Report here (PDF-14MB).

We look forward to celebrating our 10th anniversary with you in 2020. Thank you for all you have done to make possible the 1,500 total Slow Art Day events over the years on every continent and land mass except for Greenland (who is up for Greenland this year?). 

Best,  

Phil, Ashley, Maggie, Johanna and the whole Slow Art Day central volunteer team 

PS –

If you haven’t already, you can register for 2020 participation via this link: https://www.slowartday.com/be-a-host

The Power Plant Hosts Successful Third Slow Art Day; and Mid-year Roundtable with Phil Terry

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The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto, Ontario, Canada hosted a successful third Slow Art Day in 2019, led by Kendra Campbell, TD Curator of Education & Outreach Fellow. Kendra guided participants to look slowly at one work of art in each of three exhibitions: Shuvinai Ashoona: Mapping Worlds; Alicia Henry: Witnessing; and Omar Ba: Same Dream.

She then led a group discussion about the participants’ perceptions of slow looking. They discussed their personal connections with the artworks, which revealed startling similarities.

Participants viewing work from Shuvinai Ashoona: Mapping Worlds.
Slow Art Day 2019 at The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery (Toronto, Ontario, Canada). Saturday, April, 6, 2019.
Participants viewing work from Alicia Henry: Witnessing.
Slow Art Day 2019 at The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery (Toronto, Ontario, Canada). Saturday, April, 6, 2019.

On Wednesday, July 3, 2019, The Power Plant also hosted Phil Terry, the founder of Slow Art Day, for a roundtable discussion with Toronto-area organizations that have hosted, or aspire to host, their own Slow Art Day. Each of the educators and curators talked about their designs for Slow Art Day, and what worked and what did not.

Phil Terry, center back of the table, meets with Toronto host venues at The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery (Toronto, Ontario, Canada). Photo: Josh Heuman.

The Power Plant’s new TD Fellow, Laura Demers, will be ready to guide the next Slow Art Day on Saturday 4, April 2020, and we look forward to seeing what she has in store for the event.

– Ashley

Slow Art Day and the All Stars Project

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In November, Slow Art Day founder Phil Terry partnered with the All Stars Project to bring a group of youth and community members to El Museo del Barrio in New York for a day of slow looking and discussion.

Phil writes, “Museums and art are for everyone – not just the few. Slow Art Day and the All Stars Project, Inc. are working together to help more people learn how to look at and love art – how to walk into a museum and not feel intimidated, to approach art as if we are all included because we are.”

Check out photos from the visit below!

The Value of Slow Looking

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But what’s interesting about Slow Art Day is that it offers a practice (look for at least 10 minutes) and the possibility of an experience that’s owned by the viewer. It’s why giving attention to art at the very least brings new perspective, and is in the words of business thinkers potentially ‘disruptive’ in that it can over time shift how you see things. In a world of customization and personalization digital technology provides us with the stuff based on previous choices – it makes life easier.

– John O’Reilly, Slow Art Day and the value of spending time looking at pictures, Image Source, (via).

 

Image Source has interviewed our founder, Phil Terry, on his thoughts about Slow Art Day!

Read on to find out the original inspiration and “a-ha” moment that sparked Slow Art Day’s birth, why freedom is important for the viewer’s engagement, what Phil Terry means by “monogamous-in-the-moment“and much more here.

– Karen

 

Slow Art, Fast City

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Slow Art Fast City from Raw Footage Films on Vimeo.

“Beyond slow looking we had no rules. We weren’t looking for anything, we didn’t have to like what we saw, there would be no wrong way to look or right way either.“

See video coverage of founder Phil Terry’s 2013 Slow Art Day event embedded above from Raw Footage Films. Phil’s event took place at the Brooklyn Museum with each participant viewing five works. Each viewer was eager to view these hand-selected works and discuss the experience afterwards.

The group felt gratified knowing that “while our conversation was specific and personal,” 270+ venues across the world were having their own “attentive and unmediated” conversations about art. As the fast-paced antics of New York City beckoned at the close of the event, the participants left gratified with a new awakening to the benefits of slow looking.

Feeling inspired?
Don’t forget it’s never too early to sign up as a host or to participate in a 2014 venue near you.

Was your Slow Art Day event similarly invigorating? Share your experiences below in the comments!

Thank you

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Two days ago on Saturday, April 27 we celebrated Slow Art Day 2013 in 272 museums in 207 cites across six continents.

We – the volunteer team who runs Slow Art Day – have much to be thankful for.

I started Slow Art Day with four participants at the Museum of Modern Art in 2009. Four years later – and without any money invested at all – we have built a global movement with thousands of participants and hundreds of hosts.

How did Slow Art Day grow like this?

For me answering that question means acknowledging that we have just barely begun.

Even in the United States, with the largest economy in the world by far, only 23% of adults visit art museums each year. That means 77% stay away.

Why do so many people stay away from these important cultural institutions?

There are many varied and complex reasons but at Slow Art Day we believe that at least one reason is that many people do not feel welcome. This is true despite the genuine hard work and creativity that most museums put into welcoming the public.

I started Slow Art Day because I myself finally discovered that if I stood in front of a piece of art for an extended time that I saw much more and felt included in the art experience. Most importantly, I felt that way not because someone told me what to see or feel but because I included myself. If thousands, indeed millions, of people took the time to look slowly, then they might discover for themselves that they have the capacity to look at and participate fully in art.

The art on the walls and galleries of public institutions around the world is owned by all of humanity. This is our art. It is for us and by us. And Slow Art Day creates the possibility for millions of people to realize that simple but profound truth.

So, yes, we give thanks to the:

– 272 volunteer hosts around the world who created and ran their own powerful and unique events for Slow Art Day;

– 20 members of the global coordinating team, many of them art history college students, who brought their passion, creativity and energy to building Slow Art Day 2013;

– thousands of museums and galleries around the world who work so hard to make art available and whose staffs inspire us everyday;

– many thousands of artists who give their gifts to all of humanity;

– many, many thousands of people who took two hours on Saturday to look slowly and discover for themselves the joy of including themselves in this thing called art.

Thank you!

Phil Terry
Founder, Slow Art Day