

The 15th Anniversary Slow Art Day is coming up Saturday, April 5, 2025 and I’m happy to announce today the publication of our 2024 Annual Report, which details many of the events held last year.
Read it and get inspired to plan your 15th Anniversary Slow Art Day 2025 events (register your museum, gallery, church, sculpture park or movie theater for 2025, if you have not yet done so).
More than 180 museums and galleries participated in 2024 (plus many more that ran Slow Art Day sessions but did not register with us). The Slow Art Day volunteer team spent hundreds of hours throughout 2024 and early 2025 researching, writing, and publishing individual reports from 45 of these museums and galleries, all so that curators and educators like you can take inspiration from each other.
Read the report and you will see the impressive citywide event held in Bloomington, Illinois (more than 20 galleries, museums, libraries and other sites participated in 2024). This is the same event that has now inspired Mexico City to host a 33-venue Slow Art Day in 2025.
You’ll see how The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Met Cloisters hosted again while Mass MoCA in North Adams celebrated Slow Art Day for the 10th time or so. The beautiful and wonderful Athenaeum in Boston hosted for the first time while Philadelphia’s The Barnes Foundation, Glenn Foerd, and the Magic Gardens all hosted Slow Art Day events.
In Washington D.C., the National Museum of Women in the Arts hosted yet again (they are one the founding museums for Slow Art Day) while Florida hosted 7 different venues including the Frost Art Museum and the Lowe Art Museum both in Miami.
Antwerp’s church-based Slow Art movement grew to four churches – and we hope will grow into a global movement of churches, synagogues, mosques, and other religious organizations.
St. Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne continued to innovate the art and patient experience (hint: they designed six “slow art cards” with photos of works from their St Vincent’s Art Collection) and in 2025 are reaching out to more hospitals to get them involved.
The Ur Mara Museo in Spain’s Basque country held its 9th Slow Art Day with another full day of slow looking, cooking, eating, and dancing (though we don’t have a report from them this year).
While Ur Mara Museo has been celebrating Slow Art Day for nine years in the Basque country, The Altes Museum (English: Old Museum), a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the heart of Berlin’s museum island, held their Slow Art Day. And check this – the “prerequisite” for participation in this workshop was “curiosity and goodwill towards yourself.”
The Goulandris Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens held the first Slow Art Day in the Greek capital (other Greek cities have hosted – but this year is a first for Athens) while The AGO in Toronto, one of the largest museums in North America, hosted their 9th Slow Art Day.
Europe held three citywide Slow Art Days – Antwerp, Belgium (8 locations), Reims, France (4 locations), Rome, Italy (3 museums).
Belgium hosted 11 locations, Sweden 8, Italy 7, England 6, Germany 5. Read on to get inspired about all the various events around the world.
I want to give special thanks to the Slow Art Day Annual Report team led by Ashley Moran, Editor, and writers Johanna Bokedal, and Jessica Jane Nocella. They work tirelessly to produce this Annual Report and volunteer weekends, mornings, evenings throughout the year.
They fit this in between their full-time job (Ashley Moran at Comcast in the United States), full-time job/PhD student (Johanna Bokedal in Norway), and full-time post-doc work (Jessica Jane in Italy).
And while we are at it, let’s celebrate volunteer Maggie Freeman who is the global director and registrar for Slow Art Day. Maggie started volunteering 10 years ago when she was a sophomore at Mills College. Today, she is finishing her PhD in Islamic Art and Architecture at MIT and somehow, like the others, still finds time to volunteer.
They all do this amazing work for one reason: to grow the Slow Art Day movement around the world so that more people can learn to look at and love art.
Please join me in giving thanks and appreciation to them. They deserve all the kudos we can give them and more.
And have a great 15th anniversary Slow Art Day coming up April 5.
Best,
Phyl and the Slow Art Day team
P.S. Again, if you have not yet registered your 2025 Slow Art Day with us, please do so.
The fourth annual citywide Slow Art Day on Route 66 is being hosted by the twin cities of Bloomington-Normal, Illinois this year.
** 20 ** local arts organizations are coming together for their citywide Slow Art Day, led by BN Artists, the grassroots, artist-led coalition of small business owners, nonprofit workers, and other culturally engaged citizens working collaboratively to promote the vibrant art scene in Bloomington-Normal.
Led by Pamala Eaton and others, BN Artists pioneered citywide events and have inspired other cities around the world to do it, including Rome and Mexico City (Mexico City is also their first citywide this year and bringing together 20 galleries and museums and they specifically cited Bloomington-Normal).
In Bloomington-Normal, guests will have a chance to explore the art studios and galleries of Downtown Bloomington artists, enter a world built of discarded machinery and scrap parts at 410 Sculpture Park and the House on Garling, and experience art viewing and artmaking in Normal at Illinois Art Station, the Children’s Discovery Museum, and Ryburn Place at Sprague’s Super Service.
See the wonderful poster below –
Santino Lamancusa, owner of The Hangar Art Company (who also designed the poster) explained his passion for Slow Art Day: “You don’t have to know anything about art to be able to enjoy it. Slow Art Day’s purpose is to allow you the time to look and make your own discoveries about what you see and how art makes you feel. It’s all about your interaction with the artist and what your experience is with their art. It’s not about anyone else’s opinion but your own. Slow Art Day is an opportunity to experience art for yourself.”
Pamala Eaton, gallerist and owner of Herb Eaton Studio and Gallery said Slow Art Day has helped to build the local art scene, “Collaborating with the other artists and galleries in our community for Slow Art Day has given our local art scene more visibility and we are now attracting more local and out of town visitors to our art locations.”
We at Slow Art Day love what Pamala, Santino, and others have done to get the whole city involved.
They are truly an inspiration for the world!
– Phyl and the Slow Art Day team
P.S. Slow Art Day 2025 is coming up on April 5. If you have not done so, please register your museum, gallery, church, sculpture park or movie theater here: https://www.slowartday.com/be-a-host/
For Slow Art Day 2024, Glen Foerd in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania invited participants to look slowly at four selected works of art, led by Executive Director Ross Mitchell.
Glen Foerd itself is a beautiful mansion and grounds on the banks of the Delaware River (learn more about the venue and its history on their website).
Their collection is an eclectic mix of works from the Renaissance to the twentieth century, where Italian masterpieces sit next to works by local Philadelphia artists. The beauty of slow-looking is that it brings deep observation and appreciation to all works of art no matter the provenance.
For the event, participants were invited to spend at least 10 minutes with each
of the following selected pieces:
Afterwards, Ross led the group through a discussion about each work.
Participants were also given a flyer with a series of prompts (download the flier).
Ashley Moran, volunteer at Slow Art Day HQ, visited Glen Foerd for their fourth Slow Art Day in 2024, and very much appreciated their selection of art and the lively discussion facilitated by Executive Director Ross Mitchell.
We are excited to see what they come up with for Slow Art Day 2025.
– Ashley, Jessica Jane, Johanna, and Phyl
P.S. Slow Art Day 2025 is coming up on April 5. If you have not done so, please register your museum, gallery, church, hospital, sculpture park or movie theater here: https://www.slowartday.com/be-a-host/