For their second Slow Art Day, Köpings Museum in Sweden organized both an in-person as well as an online slow-looking event. Additionally, this year the local library in Köping participated in Slow Art Day by borrowing a painting from the museum to use for slow looking.
Visitors to Köpings Museum were invited to join a slow-looking guided tour in the exhibit “A picture – a story” (“En bild – en historia”) by Ulf Rehnholm and Inger Holmberg.
Exhibition poster for the exhibition “A Picture – A History”
Visitors were also offered the below slow-looking instructions (in Swedish) for a self-guided option, as well as paper binoculars to help focus on details in the art.
“Solar Altar” by Lars Lindeberg (1925-2011). Color lithograph, 1999. The artwork belongs to Köping municipality’s art collection. The image was used for Köpings Museum’s digital Slow Art Day event.
At Slow Art Day HQ, we love seeing the library and museum work together – this is a great partnership that should inspire other museums around the world to work with their local libraries. Perhaps next year we will see more such partnerships develop.
In the meantime, we look forward to what Köpings Museum and the Köping Library come up with for 2025.
-Johanna, Ashley, Jessica Jane, and Phyl
P.S. Stay up to date with future events at Köpings museum via their Facebook page
P.P.S. There is no possessive apostrophe in Swedish – so Köpings Museum is written without that apostrophe (in English it would be Köping’s Museum).
The Art Museum in Riga Bourse in Riga, Latvia hosted a virtual, weeklong Slow Art Week for their third year participating in the slow looking movement. Anna Emsiņa, art educator, hosted the event and communications manager, Anete Brakša, worked on virtual videos and Instagram stories.
The text above is an invitation/explanation on how and why to look at art slowly. It translates to: “Spending extended time with the chosen art object and delving into the details to find an individual connection with it.”
The image above contains prompts to consider while slow looking and translates to: “Choose one art object and devote time to it. (deep inhale and exhale) – What is your first impression, why? why chose this work? – Does this work of art remind you of something? – What attracts you to the composition? – What feelings do the colors create? – Imagine that a work of art is a new environment – what do you feel?”
The image above is a centering exercise; it translates to: “The main thing is to breathe. Close your eyes if necessary and don’t be afraid to answer the questions that arise for yourself.”
Their Slow Art Week brought many virtual visitors, with thousands of views.
The Art Museum Riga Bourse holds slow art events throughout the year and more information can be found on their calendar. They hope to have some in person, but will continue with the virtual events as long as necessary.
We can’t wait to see what this important and creative museum comes up with for next year.
For their second Slow Art Day, the Atelier delle Fate in Calvagese della Riviera, Italy, hosted a week of hybrid in-person and virtual slow looking events.
Atelier della Fate Slow Art Day poster 2022Artwork by Lorenzo Bianchini • Samuel Maccarinelli • Lorena Bianchini. Photo: Lorena Bianchini.
During the week, visitors to the gallery were able to slowly look at a series of 15 artworks by different artists. They were encouraged to write a written response to each of the artworks, including reflection about the emotions or memories evoked by each painting.
The event was also made virtual, and images of each work were shared in staggered intervals to the event page on Facebook, where people also shared their thoughts in the comments.
At Slow Art Day HQ, we especially like that participants who could not visit the gallery in person could still join online. The idea of staggering images to be released across a week allows people to make slow looking part of each day — a practice we love to see.
We look forward to what the Atelier delle Fate comes up with in 2023.
Hope you had a wonderful Slow Art Day 2022. We look forward to all of your post-event updates, which we will begin turning into written reports (and publish here throughout the year and then in our annual report at the end of 2022).
But today, on the day after Slow Art Day, I want to share this (lightly edited) message we received from Kyiv and the Khanenko Museum just before this year’s event.
I am Hanna Rudyk, a Deputy Director of Education and Communication at the Khanenko Museum in Kyiv, Ukraine.
The Khanenko Museum (officially: the Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko Nationam Museum of Arts), which holds the largest Ukrainian collection of art from around the world, has been a Slow Art Day host for the last three years.
This year we were also planning to host the event in our museum. But Russia’s war against Ukraine prevented us from going forward with these plans. So, we decided instead to switch our Slow Art Day to an online event focused on one artwork. We will show a very rarely exhibited piece of Chinese art and ask our followers to contemplate upon it and share ideas. In the afternoon, we will give time for our curator to add some comments.
I wonder, if our plans could be somehow reflected on the Slow Art Day Official website. We are truly committed to the ideas underlying Slow Art Day and we urgently need now to be more visible and supported.
Below is the artwork they looked at yesterday and the MS Word file they sent last night with the online prompts and some of the comments they received.
Hope you had a wonderful Slow Art Day and wherever you are, you think about our colleagues in Kyiv.
Those of us who love art – and love helping more people learn to look at and love art – we form a global city, and this year one of our neighborhoods is under attack.
Yet, our neighbors still found a way to celebrate Slow Art Day.
They inspire us and have shown us all how to live even in the most difficult moments.
And for that and many other reasons, they deserve *all* of our support and attention.
Phyl
P.S. Here’s the Word file with their prompts and comments.
For their first Slow Art Day, Casa Regis, a non-profit association and centre for culture and contemporary art in Valdilana, Italy, featured local artists in a video and social-media-based event.
Casa Regis’ Facebook post of the event. In the picture, Achill(a)/Frame, sculpture by Daniele Basso.
On April 10, 2021, art photographer and founder of Casa Regis, Mikelle Standbridge, uploaded a series of short videos of different artistic installations on the organization’s Instagram page.
The videos featured a soundscape of birds chirping, as Mikelle briefly introduces works by local artists Sissi Castellano, Daniele Basso, Carla Crosio, Michela Cavagna and herself. Note: the artists were selected and chosen in part because of the interesting juxtaposition of their work against the backdrop of the eighteenth-century building in which Casa Regis is located.
Below you can find pictures of the featured installations, links to the videos, and a brief description of each.
Screenshot from the short video of Sissi Castellano’s installation I AM NOT AN ARTIST
Sissi Castellano‘s silkworm cocoon installation entitled‘ ‘I AM NOT AN ARTIST‘, is based on the Japanese Mingei philosophy of objects, which the artist follows. The Mingei approach simulatenaously focuses on the function and aesthetic value of common household objects.
You can view the installation and the above video here.
Daniele Basso.Hawk. Steel and white bronze sculpure. Picture taken from Casa Regis’ IG page.
Sculptor and artist Daniele Basso‘s ‘Hawk’, which comes from a series called Frames, is a stainless steel and white bronze sculpture. The artist plays with effects of mirroring, showing the complexity and the different levels of reality.
You can find a brief explanation and watch above video here.
Carla Crosio. Cancer. Picture taken from Casa Regis’ IG page.
Artist Carla Crosio‘s installation, entitled Cancer, is made of of marble, bronze and glass and it takes inspiration from her personal life.
At Slow Art Day HQ, we love the use of video for creating slow looking environments. We recommend that our museum educator and curator friends around the world watch some of the short videos that Mikelle created.
We are also happy to report that their inaugural event was so successful that they then planned in-person Slow Art day events for the rest of 2021. Excellent!
We look forward to whatever Casa Regis comes up with for Slow Art Day 2022.
Jessica, Johanna, Ashley, and Phyl
PS: A press release of the event is available in Italian here.
For their 6th Slow Art Day, the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California, designed a virtual slow looking event focused on the Russian painter Vassily Kandinsky’s painting Heavy Circles.
Vassily Kandinsky, 1927. Heavy Circles. Oil on canvas. 22-1/2 x 20-1/2 in. (57.2 x 52.1 cm) Courtesy of Norton Simon Museum
On April 10, 2021, the museum posted Kandinsky’s artwork along with slow looking prompts to their Instagram page. Viewers were invited to focus on an area of the painting that drew their eye, then turn their attention to how this area relates to the surrounding sections. Then visitors were asked to consider the entire painting, contemplating how the different parts relate to each other.
The post was a great success, and was liked 1,087 times.
Mariko Tu, who has been the Manager of Youth and Family Programs at the Norton Simon for the last seven years, let us know that this is her last year at the museum.
We want to take a moment to thank Mariko for her longtime leadership in the Slow Art Day movement. We love the slow looking events Mariko has designed over the years and look forward to doing some slow looking with her wherever she goes from here (see her great 2020 session design here).
In the meantime, we look forward to what the Norton Simon creates next year for Slow Art Day 2022.
For their 7th Slow Art Day on April 10th, the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in Toronto, one of Canada’s largest art museums, shared a video and five artworks from their collection to their social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
A couple of days before the event, AGO uploaded a slow looking video featuring Clarence Alphonse Gagnon’s ‘Study of a Hare in Winter’ (1922), with a slow looking and mindfulness exercise guided by Melissa Smith, Assistant Curator of Community Programs.
Slow Looking video produced by the Art Gallery of Ontario for Slow Art Day 2021, featuring Clarence Alphonse Gagnon’s ‘Study of a Hare in Winter’ (1922), with a slow looking exercise guided by Melissa Smith, Assistant Curator of Community Programs.
On the actual day of the event, participants were then invited to focus on each of these five artworks for 10 minutes:
Kazuo Nakamura, Blue Reflections, 1962
Abraham Anghik Ruben, Sedna, c.1990
Vilhelm Hammershøi, Interior with Four Etchings, 1904
Julie Mehretu, Algorithms, Apparitions and Translations, 2013
Christi Belcourt, Wisdom of the Universe. 2014
They were also encouraged to leave comments under each image.
Below are images of the artworks, which we encourage you to experience slowly using the AGO’s prompts that follow.
For this Kazuo Nakamura piece don’t just look slowly, look closely. See how subtly the colours change. Pay attention to how the gradual shifts in brushstrokes give a sense of movement to the landscape. What do you notice about how the brushstrokes are applied? Each and every brushstroke is calculated and purposefully applied. Nakamura is best known for this analytical approach in his paintings, and in his later works, he was influenced by mathematics and scientific theories. He sought to discover a universal pattern in art and nature. What do you think this universal pattern would look like? Do you prefer an analytical approach or a more gestural one?
Abraham Anghik Ruben is a storyteller and tells his stories through the medium of sculpture. His sculptures often tell the legends, myths, and spiritual traditions of the Inuit people and the Arctic land. A recurring figure in Ruben’s works is the Inuit Sea Goddess, Sedna. Look at how her hair dramatically but gracefully arches up behind her like it is flowing with the movement of water. Notice how her eyes stand out from the rest of the sculpture, and how she clutches her hands close to her torso. What do her expression and her posture suggest? What is the message Ruben is trying to share?
Looking for a little calm and quiet? Come and join us in Vilhelm Hammershøi’s “Interior with Four Etchings”. A muted scene in both colour and sound, we invite you to hush the world around you as you spend some time with this piece. The female figure is the artist’s wife, Ida. Since she has her back to us, we cannot read her expression. But because she is turned away, we can enter and explore this private space freely. Take a look around. Notice how the light softly enters from the left, creating reflections on surfaces and depth in the space. Where do your eyes go? To the items on the table? To the etchings on the wall? What are the etchings of? Look closely because there are details here that could have easily escaped you before.
There’s no piece quite like this Julie Mehretu that demonstrates the importance of an unhurried and patient approach to art. Mehretu is inspired by landscapes, cities, and human activity within nature. Particularly interested in layered imagery, Mehretu’s printmaking technique requires her to slow down as she layers line upon line to create this surreal landscape. Take a look, what do you see? Now, look closer. Even closer. The closer you look the more details you’ll see. The larger narrative will begin to fall apart, revealing various smaller narratives beneath. Just as the piece evolves with each of Mehretu’s lines, your experience of this work will also evolve over time. So, go on. Look again.
Ten minutes is hardly enough time to contemplate the wisdom of the universe, both the concept and this piece by Metis artist Christi Belcourt. Take your time to really explore this piece. What type of birds do you see? What type of flowers and vegetation can you recognize? Imagine yourself in this space. Move through the branches and notice the balance and harmony. Can you hear the sounds of the animals? Can you smell the flowers around you? See how everything is connected. This great network of life. Belcourt’s piece asks us to reflect upon the well-being of all living species on this earth, as the current climate crisis affects us all. Take a deep breath, and surround yourself with the wisdom of the universe.
xxxx
The event was well received, with 10,000+ likes and views on the AGO’s social media platforms.
Below are some great quotes form participants:
This is my favourite painting at the AGO! I always spend a long time in front of it and always pick up something new each visit.
Participant’s comment under Nakamura’s painting – Instagram
Love this idea!!
Participant’s comment on Instagram
We appreciate the Art Gallery of Ontario’s thoughtful design for this multi-day virtual event, and look forward to what they come up with for Slow Art Day in 2022.
For their second Slow Art Day, Sørlandets Kunstmuseum in Kristiansand, Norway, hosted a live slow looking event on Facebook, featuring Else Hagen’s artwork named Veninner (in English: ‘female friends’, alt. ‘girlfriends’).
On April 10, participants could tune in to the live 30 minute event on the museum’s Facebook page. The session was facilitated by Hanne Aamodt and Karoline Skomedal, respectively head tourguide and tourguide at the museum.
Participants were given an introduction to Slow Art Day, and then invited to observe the painting for seven minutes, using automatic writing as a slow looking tool (automatic writing means writing down words that come to mind without thinking about it). Afterwards, the facilitators shared some of their own thoughts and gave participants a set of prompts to use while studying the painting for seven *more* minutes.
The prompts included:
What shapes, colors and materials do you see?
What details do you notice?
What is going on in the painting?
Does the artwork remind you of something from your own life?
If you were at the place depicted in the artwork, what sounds would you hear? What surfaces, smells and temperatures would you feel?
The event was well received, and participants left comments like this after the live session:
“This was a great experience! I recommend it 🧡 Thank you very much!”
Participant’s quote on Facebook
The session was recorded and shared to YouTube. The video is included below for you to watch.
Slow Art Day 2021: Dypdykk i maleriet “Venninner” av Else Hagen. Video produced by Sørlandets Kunstmuseum.
At Slow Art Day HQ, we love the subject of this painting. Friends supporting each other is obviously a relevant theme during the ongoing pandemic, and we appreciate the warmth of this artwork.
If you would like to see more from Sørlandets Kunstmuseum, you can find them on their Facebook and Instagram pages.
We look forward to seeing what the Sørlandets Kunstmuseum has in store for Slow Art Day 2022.
For their first Slow Art Day on April 10, 2021, Open to Being, a community-building organization based in Arlington, Virginia, hosted a virtual slow looking event and set of interactive exercises.
Theresa Esterlund, the founder of Open to Being, led a 45-minute session focused on artist Foon Sham’s outdoor sculpture ‘Ridge’ (2018), and participants were invited to join via Zoom or Facebook Live.
Foon Sham. Ridge. 2018. Public installation located in Oakland Park, Arlington, Virginia. Photograph by Theresa Esterlund.
After looking slowly at the sculpture for 7-10 minutes, participants were invited to share and discuss their observations using the following questions and creative prompts:
Questions
What did the experience feel like to you?
What surprised you?
What inspired you?
What sparked your curiosity?
What do you remember the most?
Creative prompts
Write a 6 word story or Haiku
Use scraps of paper or other materials to build something
Take a photo
Design a symbol
Draw
Pictures and notes submitted by the participants in response to the creative prompts
The event was well received, and participants felt that the program was very accessible:
“I really appreciated the way your program unfolded. I did feel like I was transported to the park in a way, it was engaging in that we could almost compare notes with each other as guests on Zoom.”
Participant’s comment
With 25 years of experience in science, history, and art museum education, Esterlund is also an artist who now teaches yoga and meditation alongside her work with Open to Being. She sees a clear connection between slow looking at art and mindfulness:
“Looking at art slowly is an opportunity to practice mindfulness – being with everything that’s going on at any given moment and experiencing everything without judging or getting caught up in it. That kind of experience can lead to openings, which might be experienced long after the program. The emphasis was on the experience, with the artwork as a pathway and essential element of that experience, rather than on the art itself.”
Theresa Esterlund
At Slow Art Day HQ, we love it when hosts integrate slow looking, mindfulness and play. We can’t wait to see what creative design Esterlund comes up with for Slow Art Day 2022.
-Johanna, Jessica, Ashley and Phyl
PS. You can view a recording of the event, and check out the Open to Being Facebook page for more information about upcoming events.
For their first Slow Art Day, the online platform Red Zenith Collective launched on April 10, 2021 the project ‘What is Your Definition of Slow Art?‘ with a day-long series of four virtual activities dedicated to the meaning and potential of slow art.
These activities included:
An Instagram interview about slow art and sustainability.
A downloadable PDF with slow looking prompts, available to participants throughout the day.
A collaborative video project: ‘What is Your Definition of Slow Art?‘
An art meditation on the painting ‘Flamenco Singer‘ (Sonia Delaunay, 1916).
Sonia Delaunay, Flamenco Singer, 1916
Red Zenith Collective was founded by two Polish artists, Marta Grabowska and Zula Rabikowska as a platform for women, female-identifying and non-binary creatives with a link to Central and Eastern Europe. The Slow Art Day event was conceptualized and realized by Marta Grabowska, who is also a slow art activist.
Participants were first invited to watch an Instagram interview on definitions of slow art, including how to cultivate sustainability of slow looking in art and curatorship. Marta Grabowska interviewed Veronika Cechova and Tereza Jindrova, curators at the Entrance Gallery in Prague, Czech Republic – the first artistic space in Prague to include ecological sustainability and the environment in its long-term program.
The final event of the day was a Zoom art meditation on the painting ‘Flamenco Singer‘ by a Russian-French artist Sonia Delaunay. The meditation was the first in a series of art meditations written by Grabowska, who wrote the script. The meditation lasted 20 minutes and was scripted based on primary and secondary sources of the artists and their work.
Participants loved the program, and left very positive feedback:
Amazing way to focus your attention and learn a bit of art history.
Shane Hart
A very memorable experience. Allowed me to be mindful and really enjoy the vibrant artwork.
Julia
Great idea to marry meditation practices and art! I want more!
Anonymous
I wasn’t sure what to expect, as the name of the artist was not released until the last minute, but it was a gorgeous experience. The koshi bells were mesmerising! Both the writer and the provider are very knowledgeable and managed to create an alternative education setting that captivated us greatly!
Anonymous
At Slow Art Day HQ, we are impressed by and excited to learn more about Marta Grabowska’s ongoing research – perhaps even as part of the 2022 Red Zenith Collective Slow Art Day!
