The annual event celebrating art.
Slow Art Day is Saturday, April 11, 2026 Join Us!
Photo by Greg Neville
From Canvas to Table: Slow Art and Slow Food at The Mart
December 10th, 2025For their 5th Slow Art Day, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto (The Mart), Italy, organized an event in collaboration with a local Slow Food collective, an association committed to restoring value to food – respecting those who produce it in harmony with the environment and ecosystems – while enhancing the knowledge preserved by local territories and traditions.
This is the second collaboration between The Mart and Slow Food, with the first occurring during their 2023 Slow Art Day. For this event, five local producers focused on cheese, chili, preserves, wine and baked goods.
For the 2025 event planning, the Slow Food producers were invited a week earlier to look slowly at the two works of art selected for Slow Art Day. Afterwards, they were asked to associate one of their food products with each work they had just observed – so cool.
On the day of the event, twenty “Amici del Mart” (Friends of The Mart who are enrolled in The Mart’s Membership program) repeated the slow looking experience with the same art works, taking time to observe them on their own before group discussions.
They were then divided into five groups, each with some “veteran slow lookers” as well as first-time participants. The groups discussed the works and assigned scores from 0 to 5 against emotions and aesthetics connected to the pieces (prompted by the question “Would you put this work in your home?”).
Afterwards, participants enjoyed a tasting with the five local producers, who paired food with the artworks based on color, atmosphere and emotions evoked. During that tasting, the producers shared the story behind their pairing choices, offering a personal and creative look at the link between the artworks and food. What a great design.
The event proved to be a wonderful way to bring food and art together, while giving visibility to local food producers.
We at Slow Art Day HQ have always believed that Slow Food and Slow Art belong together and love what The Mart is doing to lead the way. We look forward to seeing what they come up with for Slow Art Day 2026.
– Jessica Jane, Ashley, Johanna, and Phyl
National Gallery of Canada: Deepening Reflection Through Guided Looking
November 25th, 2025For their third Slow Art Day, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa invited participants to join their event onsite or from home through a guided slow-looking video.
Educator Andrea Gumpert reported that in-person participants were led in both English and French through 2 hour-long sessions by Interpreter-Guides Morel McMaster and Juliana Abramo. Each session began with a brief warm-up and an introduction to the purpose of slowing down with art. Participants then spent five minutes seated with an artwork of their choosing, followed by a group discussion. They repeated the exercise with a different artwork in another gallery, this time extending the observation period.
One of the core philosophies of Slow Art Day is that if you spend a few minutes with a piece of art, then even if you “don’t like it”, you still build a relationship with it and that often means you go deeper than “like or don’t like.”
This experience is repeated thousands of times around the world and was certainly present in Ottawa for Slow Art Day.
In fact, during the first exercise, one participant shared with Juliana that they “didn’t like the painting they chose at first but ended up really appreciating it towards the end,” highlighting how slow looking can shift perception.
Practically speaking, all visitors received a bilingual handout encouraging them to “Slow Down. Reflect. Discover. Engage.”
Below is the video that viewers participating at home could experience:
The National Gallery also did a good job attracting media attention for their Slow Art Day.
CBC Radio’s All in a Day with Alan Neal aired a segment “Take your time with the slooooooow art tour”. CBC Television likewise featured the event in a piece titled The National Gallery wants you to slow down and appreciate art, in which reporter Sandra Abma experienced a slow art tour with educator Andrea Gumpert.
Based on positive visitor feedback from last year’s Slow Art Day, the Gallery has also introduced monthly Guided Slow Looking Sundays, held on the last Sunday of each month. This warms out heart given that one of our core objectives is to inspire year-round programming.
We extend our appreciation to Andrea Gumpert, Morel McMaster, Juliana Abramo, and the entire National Gallery team for their ongoing commitment to slow-looking experiences. We look forward to their continued participation next year.
– Ashley, Johanna, Jessica Jane, and Phyl
P.S. Explore the National Gallery of Canada’s programs on Facebook and Instagram.
Slow Looking Art Swap at Creative Arts Workshop in New Haven, CT
September 30th, 2025For their first Slow Art Day, the Creative Arts Workshop, a community art school in New Haven, Connecticut, hosted a slow-looking art swap – where the artists were the participants – facilitated by Dymin Ellis, poet, digital artist, musician, and community organizer. Artists ranging from youth to adults participated in the event, each contributing multiple original pieces including photography, altered books, digital art, and embossed prints.
Dymin Ellis led the group through a series of three exercises designed to deepen their engagement with one another’s artworks, and started by asking participants to share their names, artistic disciplines, and the titles of the works they brought. They were then asked to exchange their art work but keep them face down until the exercises began.
- First, each artist was asked to share their piece for 10-seconds only.
- Each participant was then asked to share a single word inspired by what they saw.
- They repeated the 10-second viewing a second time engaging all 5 senses, and were then asked: “What do you see? smell? feel? hear? taste?”
- Next, participants were asked to look at the same work for 1 minute. They were then asked if they had an emotional reaction to the art.
- Finally, Ellis facilitated a ten-minute slow-looking session, introducing the following prompts every two minutes. Participants were asked to write their responses and share in a group discussion afterwards.
- What if this artwork were a portal to a dream—whose dreamworld would it lead to, and what would greet you on the other side?
- Who do you imagine this artwork remembers? Whose hands, eyes, or stories does it carry forward?
- Put yourself in the place of the canvas and imagine what it must have endured to become what it is now.
- Imagine the canvas is living flesh—warm, breathing, wounded, or healed. What kind of creature wears this? Is the artwork a tattoo, a scar, a birthmark, or a disguise?
- Let your senses cross wires. What color does this artwork smell like? What texture does it sing in? What temperature does it speak with?
The session concluded with a collective reflection on the experience, where participants shared what stood out most and how they might apply slow-looking practices in the future.
Dymin reported that the discussion was “intimate, reflective, and at times, magical,” and highlighted how the art-swap format created deep reciprocal learning and such a collaborative spirit that some attendees chose to gift their artwork to others.
At Slow Art Day HQ, we are delighted to hear of the unique art-swap format that the Creative Arts Workshop introduced for their Slow Art Day event, and love hearing how it has helped build slow looking into the local artist community. We look forward to seeing how the Creative Arts Workshop continues to innovate for Slow Art Day 2026.
– Ashley, Johanna, Jessica Jane, and Phyl
P.S. Stay connected with Creative Arts Workshop on Facebook and Instagram.
Inclusive Slow Sculpture and Drawing Experience at Kasteel van Gaasbeek in Belgium
September 26th, 2025For their first Slow Art Day, Kasteel van Gaasbeek (Gasbeek Castle) in Belgium held two activities that combined inclusive slow looking, touching and drawing.
The first activity was a slow-looking and slow-touching session with the “The Peasant Wedding,” a gilded bronze sculpture referencing Bruegel’s paintings that is located in a quiet and intimate corner of the castle. Visitors were invited to slowly experience the sculpture on their own terms. And to make the experience more inclusive, they could choose to also experience it blindfolded or by touch, which also ensured accessibility for people with visual impairments. A guide was also there to ask questions and encourage dialogue about their impressions.
The second activity took place outside the castle, where a guide-lecturer hosted a small slow drawing workshop. Passers-by were invited to pause, sit, and sketch the castle, focusing on its details and slowing down to notice the intricacies of its architecture. This exercise provided participants with an opportunity to not only look carefully but also to translate their observations into creative expression.
We at Slow Art Day HQ love how Kasteel van Gaasbeek’s first Slow Art Day demonstrated how accessible, inclusive, and participatory approaches can enrich the slow looking experience. We look forward to seeing what they do for Slow Art Day 2026!
– Ashley, Johanna, Jessica Jane, and Phyl
P.S. Stay connected with Kasteel van Gaasbeek on Facebook and Instagram.