Eighth Slow Art Day at Habitat for the Arts, Jasper, Alberta, Canada
On April 5, 2025, Habitat for the Arts in Jasper, Alberta, Canada hosted another meaningful Slow Art Day at the Jasper Museum, continuing a tradition they have explored over eight years. Each year is different, and this year’s gathering centered on heritage photography and the way art captures and stills time.
The focus of the day was a photography exhibition featuring the work of Harry Rowed — images of people and places in Jasper National Park from the 1940s through the 1960s. The black-and-white still images offered participants a window into earlier generations, inviting them to consider memory, place, and continuity.
The morning program began with a dedicated half hour of slow viewing inside the exhibition. Participants were given a small piece of paper to carry with them as they moved through the gallery. They were invited to reflect on a simple but powerful question: Which image captured you? Which image made you stop and truly spend time with it?
After the quiet viewing period, guests gathered for tea and cookies — and even chocolate — creating a relaxed and welcoming atmosphere for conversation. The structure of the hour allowed for both solitude and shared reflection. The museum space, with comfortable seating placed among the historic images, encouraged visitors to linger.
Photography proved to be an especially fitting medium for Slow Art Day. As Habitat for the Arts shared, still images are perfect for capturing a piece of time. The photographs of Harry Rowed moved beyond documentation into storytelling. They carried gestures, landscapes, family groupings, and expressions that bridged generations.
Two reflections stood out from the discussion.
One participant shared, “It struck me witnessing the ties of family and how the love of nature and exploration crossed generations.”
Another reflected, “There is something so exact and familiar in spending time with the person in the photo. You feel almost as if you might know them, or have met them somewhere before despite the division of time.”
According to the Habitat for the Arts team, these responses captured the essence of the day.
We are grateful to Habitat for the Arts for continuing to celebrate Slow Art Day in Jasper and look forward to what they come up with for 2026.
– Ashley, Johanna, Jessica Jane, and Phyl
Test Kitchen at the Gardiner Museum, Toronto
On April 5, 2025, the Gardiner Museum in Toronto, Ontario participated in Slow Art Day for the sixth time — this year embedding the experience within their major exhibition Test Kitchen: A Museum Project.
As the museum underwent a full-scale reimagining of its ground floor and reinstallation of significant parts of its collection, Test Kitchen created a space of experimentation, collaboration, and participation. The exhibition functioned as part exhibition, part workshop, and part ideas generator. Visitors were encouraged not just to observe, but to question, respond, and contribute.
For Slow Art Day, participants were invited to closely engage with four collection-based “episodes” within the gallery:
- Connected Worlds
- Modern and Contemporary Ceramics
- Ancestral Abiyalas
- Indigenous Immemorial
Featured works included:
- Two-handled vase with palmette motif, Deruta, Umbria, Italy, c.1500–1550
- Ewer, silver mounts with German coin dated 1626, Jingdezhen, Jiangxi, China, 1635–1640
- Posset pot with chinoiseries, possibly Brislington, Bristol, England, 1687
- An Odyssey, Artist: Pamela Cevallos (Ecuadorian, born 1984), Collaborator: Guillermo Quijije, Quito, Ecuador, 2022
Participants navigated the exhibition using a self-guided Slow Art Day activity sheet created specifically for the program (below). The prompts encouraged close looking, sketching, reflective writing, and imaginative engagement.
In Connected Worlds, visitors searched for ceramics that visually embodied global exchange: an English pot with Chinese dragons, a Chinese jug with Dutch designs and a German coin, and an Italian vase made using a technique from Iraq. In Indigenous Immemorial, participants compared two works by John Kurok, reflecting on form, design, colour, and emotional tone.
In Modern and Contemporary Ceramics, guests identified works connected to myth or magic, considering how contemporary artists draw from narrative and symbolism.
In Ancestral Abiyalas, participants looked closely at An Odyssey, imagining themselves within its scenes — listening for sounds, sensing scents, and noticing what surprised them.
After completing their exploration, visitors were invited to participate in the exhibition’s interactive “Befriend an Object” activity, further reinforcing the exhibition’s collaborative spirit.
We are grateful to Sofia Flores-Ledesma and the team at the Gardiner Museum for continuing to champion Slow Art Day and for integrating it so thoughtfully into their institutional transformation, and look forward to seeing what they come up with for Slow Art Day 2026.
– Ashley, Johanna, Jessica Jane, and Phyl
Klimt, Turtles, AI & Art at Deutsches Museum Bonn
On April 5, 2025, the Deutsches Museum Bonn in Bonn, Germany participated in Slow Art Day and focused on the exhibition KI-Update: Deep Dive – Ist das Kunst? (“AI Update: Deep Dive – Is It Art?”).
The exhibition explored artificial intelligence and its growing role in creativity, authorship, and perception.
For Slow Art Day, the museum centered the experience around a set of connected questions: “Can we recognize AI-generated art? And when we look closely at AI-generated content, do we discover the same feelings, surprises, and emotions as we do when we spend a long time looking at human-made art?”
Displayed throughout the gallery were pairs of artworks inviting comparison and contemplation — classical works alongside AI-generated interpretations, including images inspired by Gustav Klimt’s Der Kuss and other well-known masterpieces. Through activating and participatory stations, visitors were encouraged to look carefully, question assumptions, and examine their own emotional responses.
The format followed a simple but powerful structure:
- First, slow down upon entering.
- Second, engage deeply with the works and prompts.
- Finally, reflect on whether the experience of looking at AI-generated imagery felt different from looking at traditionally created art.
One unexpected outcome of the day was the shared feeling of becoming “turtles.” As visitors slowed their pace and extended their viewing time, the metaphor stuck. To celebrate the theme, a volunteer led a hands-on crafting station where participants created multicolored turtles using potato starch material. The playful activity reinforced the central message of the day: slow down, take your time, and carry curiosity with you.
By blending philosophical inquiry, technology, and participatory creativity, Deutsches Museum Bonn created a Slow Art Day that felt both timely and joyful.
Warm thanks to Tanja Löschner and the entire education and engagement team for bringing Slow Art Day into the evolving conversation around AI and art. We look forward to seeing what they come up with for Slow Art Day 2026.
– Ashley, Johanna, Jessica Jane, and Phyl
Contemporary Art at Wardong Gallery
On April 5, 2025, Walyalup Fremantle Arts Centre (WFAC) in Western Australia held their first Slow Art Day during the Perth Festival exhibition season and focused on four contemporary works presented in the Wardong Gallery.
Photographer: Shannon Lyons
Before the slow looking began, Shannon Lyons, Engagement and Public Programs Coordinator, welcomed participants and acknowledged the Whadjuk people as the traditional custodians of the land.
Shannon outlined a self-directed structure for the morning and invited participants to spend approximately 15 minutes with each of the four mapped artworks, choosing their own order. They were encouraged to unplug, remain quiet, and refrain from reading the gallery texts, focusing instead on what they could see and experience directly. Notepaper, pencils, and clipboards were offered for those who wished to write or draw, and stools were available for seated viewing.
After an hour of slow looking, the group reconvened in the center of the gallery for a relaxed discussion. Conversation prompts invited participants to share one word to describe an artwork, reflect on details noticed, and consider what it felt like to look slowly.
For many attendees, this was a new experience. Most had never spent sustained time with an artwork before. The extended encounter with Mitchell’s video work encouraged careful observation and personal interpretation.
We look forward to seeing what the WFAC comes up with for Slow Art Day 2026.
– Ashley, Johanna, Jessica Jane, and Phyl
Third Place Making at the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art
On 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”
For 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