Tag Archives: therapeutic

Innovating the Patient-Art Experience at St. Vincent’s Hospital

Posted on by

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!

– JJ, Johanna, Ashley, and Phyl

ConnectArte.Gestalt at MACBA and La Virreina

Posted on by

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), 2020

Landscape 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.

-Johanna, Ashley, Jessica Jane, and Phyl

Slow Art Therapy at MACBA in Spain

Posted on by

For their second Slow Art Day, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona (MACBA), Spain, held an event hosted by certified art therapists from the Fundacion La Casa Ambar titled “A Conscious Visit to Art.”

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.

– Johanna, Ashley, Jessica Jane, and Phyl

Europe’s Largest Museum Complex Welcomes Slow Art Day

Posted on by

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.

-Johanna, Ashley, Jessica Jane, and Phyl

Engaging the Senses in Frederiksberg, Denmark

Posted on by

For their second Slow Art Day, the Frederiksberg Museums in Frederiksberg, Denmark, held two guided slow looking events at Cisternerne (The Cisterns), an underground water reservoir that now hosts contemporary art exhibitions.

Slow looking participant. Slow Art Day 2023 at Cisterne. Photo: Jacob Hansen.

For their Slow Art Day event, Cecilie Monrad, Curator and Health Manager, and Thomas Riis Jensen, Coordinator of Exhibitions and Events, invited participants to engage their senses in a new way by experiencing South Korean artist Kimsooja’s Weaving the Light exhibition at the Cisternerne.

The Cisternerne Exhibition Space featuring Kimsooja’s Weaving the Light installation. Photo: Torben Eskerod.

Before we describe what they did for Slow Art Day, we need to first explain the unique environment of the Cisternerne. It is a 4,400 square meter underground space that never sees daylight, where the humidity is close to 100%, and the temperature fluctuates between 40 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit (4 and 16 degrees Celsius). Sounds vibrate and echo throughout, and a slow surface drip of water creates stalactites on the walls and vaults.

For the Weaving the Light exhibition, Kimsooja transformed the darkness of Cisternerne into an installation of light and color by using diffraction grating film mounted on transparent panels. These let light pass through a microscopic surface of horizontal and vertical prisms, creating a spectacular array of light in the darkness.

Artist Kimsooja at her exhibition Weaving the Light at Cisternerne. Photo: Malthe Ivarsson.

The Slow Art Day event started above ground, where participants first got acclimated to the light, temperature and atmosphere outside. Next, they went down into the Cisternerne together, first spending a moment getting used to the darkness, and change in temperature and humidity. They then self-selected areas throughout the exhibition for a 30 minute slow looking session before heading back to the surface, where they shared observations and reflections from the experience.

The Cisternerne, which is actually one of four museums in The Frederiksberg Museum collection, hosts, along with the other museums, slow looking events throughout the year. This year, for example, the museum collective is leading a research program for young psychiatric users who will investigate slow looking as a component in the recovery process for people suffering from dementia, stress, or depression.

At Slow Art Day HQ we are impressed by the many ways the Frederiksberg Museums are creatively using slow looking in a number of different ways. In fact, we all want to go spend some time with them and think you should do the same.

We look forward to whatever they come up with for Slow Art Day 2024.

-Johanna, Ashley, Jessica Jane, Phyl

P.S. Note that the Cisternerne is actually one of several museums in The Frederiksberg Museum collection, which also includes:
– STORM – Museum of Humor and Satire
– Bakkehuset – Museum of the Danish Golden Age
– Møstings – Danish Museum of Contemporary and Modern Art