The annual event celebrating art.
Slow Art Day is Saturday, April 11, 2026 Join Us!
Photo by Greg Neville
Third Place Making at the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art
March 9th, 2026On April 5, 2025, the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas hosted their fifth Slow Art Day with a thoughtful and community-centered program grounded in the theme “Slow Looking as Community Third Place Making.”
Facilitated by Dr. Zida Wang, Manager of Community Engagement and Outreach, the day invited participants to consider how an art museum can function as a “third place” — a welcoming social environment beyond home and work where reflection and connection can unfold naturally. Throughout the day, participants including UNLV students, local artists, and families, moved through the galleries at their own pace.
The featured works for slow looking were paintings by Japanese-American artist Yoko Kondo Konopik:
- Play with Blue and Two Yellow (2004)
- Sunny Beach (2019)
- Las Vegas Lullaby (2021)
These bold, geometric compositions — with their intersecting planes of color, stripes, arcs, and spatial tension — offered rich opportunities for observation and interpretation.
After introducing the selected works, visitors were encouraged to engage in self-guided slow looking supported by printed prompts developed by the museum. These prompts invited participants to reflect not only on what they saw, but also on their own physical presence in the gallery.
They were asked to consider the size and dimensionality of the artwork, notice unexpected details, reflect on how their body was positioned in front of the work, and even become aware of sound and air temperature. Additional prompts invited visitors to find artworks connected to values such as compassion, courage, joy, or personal growth.
Influenced by Third Place Theory, constructivist museum approaches, and other approaches like visual thinking, the program blended independent reflection with facilitated dialogue. Participants journaled quietly, then gathered for informal conversations to share interpretations. The tone was open, exploratory, and welcoming. There was no pressure to “get it right.” Instead, the emphasis was on slowing down and discovering meaning collectively.
We love the flyer they created. As you can see below, it used oversized, rounded outline lettering with playful cutout details and a cool blue palette that gave it a distinctly 1960s modernist poster vibe. The bold typography, clean sans-serif subtext, and simple graphic shapes also created a retro feel that was both groovy *and* approachable.
According to visitors, the Slow Art Day experience made the galleries felt less like formal exhibition spaces and more like living rooms for communal viewing. Some returned to the same painting multiple times. Others compared how their perceptions shifted after hearing a peer’s insight.
By the end of the day, the event affirmed the Barrick Museum’s belief that art museums can serve as inclusive third space for reflection, empathy, and connection. In other words, Slow Art Day did not simply encourage looking; it encouraged belonging.
We are grateful to Dr. Zida Wang and the team at the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art and look forward to what they come up with for 2026!
– Ashley, Johanna, Jessica Jane, and Phyl
BYU Museum of Art: Four Ways to Slow Down in “Crossing the Divide”
March 8th, 2026For their fourth Slow Art Day, the Brigham Young University Museum of Art in Provo, Utah celebrated from Monday, March 31 through Saturday, April 5 and invited visitors to practice slow looking using four different strategies and a small group of works in the Crossing the Divide exhibition on display on the main level of the museum.
Featured works:
- “A Corner Window in a Pawn Shop” by Rose Hartwell (1893)
- “Trifloria” by Jeanne Leighton-Lundberg Clarke (c. 1981)
- “LOVE” by Robert Indiana (1973)
- “View of Monterey Bay” by Raymond Dabb Yelland (1879)
- “Great White Throne” by Phillip Henry Barkdull (1930)
Look Big
Visitors were encouraged to “cast a wide net” and examine every detail in Hartwell’s painting. The prompt challenged them to name ten different items for sale in the shop window — a structured way to slow down and notice complexity.
Narrow Your Focus
Jeanne Leighton-Lundberg Clarke, Trifloria (c. 1981), oil on canvas. Brigham Young University Museum of Art.
Here the instruction was the opposite: limit attention to colors, shapes, and patterns. By narrowing their focus, visitors discovered how repetition, contrast, and structure shape the viewing experience.
Change Your Perspective
Robert Indiana, LOVE (1973), aluminum. Brigham Young University Museum of Art.
Participants were invited to view Indiana’s sculpture from multiple angles, either in person or through online images. Altering physical perspective revealed new alignments of form and shadow.
Compare and Contrast
Phillip Henry Barkdull, Great White Throne (1930), oil on canvas. Brigham Young University Museum of Art.
Visitors were prompted to compare subject, color, line, and composition between the two landscapes. This strategy encouraged noticing similarities and differences in mood, structure, and visual language.
After completing the activity, participants returned to the front desk to receive a small prize. All visitors selected a postcard or sticker featuring one of the works. Children also received a kaleidoscope, and adults chose between a museum pin or sticker.
At Slow Art Day HQ, we love that The BYU Museum of Art asked visitors to look with four different. That’s a great design for a thoughtful Slow Art Day.
We look forward to seeing what the BYU Museum of Art comes up with for Slow Art Day 2026.
– Ashley, Johanna, Jessica Jane, and Phyl
Choi Sunu House: The Beauty and Heart of Korea
March 7th, 2026On April 5, 2025, Choi Sunu House in Seoul, South Korea participated in their third Slow Art Day with a reflective program titled “Discovering the Beauty and Heart of Korea” (“한국미 한국의 마음을 찾는 시간”).
Although rain fell steadily across Seoul that day, creating challenges for attendance, the quiet weather deepened the contemplative atmosphere of this historic hanok home nestled in Seongbuk-dong.
Choi Sunu House preserves the legacy of art historian and cultural scholar Choi Sunu (1916–1984), whose writing celebrated Korean aesthetics, craftsmanship, and spirit. Rather than centering a single artwork, the entire house and garden became the focus of slow looking — and slow reading.
Participants were invited to walk slowly through the traditional courtyard and wooden halls, surrounded by early spring blossoms. Plum flowers and azaleas were just beginning to bloom against tiled roofs and stone walls. The soft sound of rain added to the sensory experience.
The core activity of the day was transcription.
Visitors selected passages from Choi Sunu’s writings and carefully copied them by hand into squared manuscript notebooks. This act of deliberate writing encouraged participants to move at the pace of each word, absorbing not just meaning but rhythm and feeling. The practice echoed traditional Korean calligraphic discipline while remaining accessible to all.
Some guests chose to sit in the courtyard near flowering trees. Others settled indoors beside books and archival materials. A small round table was set outdoors with a publication featuring cultural artifacts and a blank page for reflection. The setting itself — stone statues, gravel paths, wooden floors warmed by filtered spring light — became part of the meditation.
The program encouraged participants to:
- Take a slow walk through Choi Sunu House
- Read selected passages from his essays
- Transcribe a sentence or paragraph that resonated
- Spend quiet time in the garden surrounded by spring blossoms
By combining slow walking, slow reading, and slow writing, Choi Sunu House beautifully expanded the meaning of Slow Art Day beyond visual observation alone. The event demonstrated how cultural heritage sites can invite visitors into embodied connection with language, architecture, landscape, and memory.
We are grateful to the team at Choi Sunu House and the National Trust Cultural Heritage Fund for carrying Slow Art Day forward in Korea, even under gray skies.
– Ashley, Johanna, Jessica Jane, and Phyl
Salem’s Public Art Commission Hosts Its First Slow Art Day
March 6th, 2026For their first Slow Art Day, the Salem Public Art Commission partnered with the Salem Public Library to invite the community to slow down with three abstract paintings from the City of Salem’s Public Art Collection. The event took place on Saturday, April 5, 2025, from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM and followed the classic Slow Art Day format: quiet viewing followed by discussion.
Featured works:
- Still Life in Flux (2014) by Nancy Lindburg
- Dwelling (1965) by Carl Morris
- View (1973) by Louis Bunce
The Commission selected these three abstract paintings because they are thoughtfully installed within the Salem Public Library and represent artists with strong ties to the Pacific Northwest.
Participants gathered by the window facing Peace Plaza and began with approximately ten minutes of silent viewing per artwork. The group was encouraged simply to look — noticing color relationships, compositional structure, surface texture, and emotional tone before moving into conversation.
Nancy Lindburg’s Still Life in Flux (2014) presents layered geometric forms in vibrant oranges, blues, and deep neutrals, creating a sense of movement within abstraction. Carl Morris’s Dwelling (1965) offers a vertical composition grounded in earthy browns and textured surfaces, punctuated by small bursts of color. Louis Bunce’s View (1973) introduces architectural structure and rhythmic pattern, balancing a vivid green plane with repeated arch-like motifs and a distant horizon.
The experience was made especially meaningful by the presence of Nancy Lindburg herself — a Salem resident and long-time local arts advocate — who joined the group. After the quiet viewing period, Lindburg shared insights into her artistic process and engaged directly with participants during what coordinators described as a lively post-viewing discussion.
The conversation that followed the silent viewing allowed participants to compare perceptions and discoveries. As often happens on Slow Art Day, viewers noted details they might otherwise have missed — subtle shifts in color, interplay between positive and negative space, and how each painting’s scale influenced their physical experience in the room.
The event was organized by Susan Napack, coordinator for the Salem Public Art Commission, in collaboration with Kathleen Swarm and the library team. The Commission also created a clear and inviting flyer (below) outlining the structure: silent viewing from 11:00–11:30, followed by reflection and discussion from 11:30–12:00 and providing QR codes to the global website and to their event site.
Also, they did a good job of marketing including getting The Statesman Journal, the local newspaper, to cover the event.
At Slow Art Day HQ, we are especially glad to welcome Salem’s Public Art Commission to the global movement. We love when city collections — especially those installed in civic spaces like libraries — become the focus of slow looking. Public art belongs to everyone, and this event demonstrated how simply creating space and time can transform everyday encounters into meaningful experiences. We also appreciate the generosity of artist Nancy Lindburg in participating directly in the conversation.
We look forward to seeing what the Salem Public Art Commission comes up with for Slow Art Day 2026.
– Ashley, Johanna, Jessica Jane, and Phyl