For their 7th Slow Art Day 2025, Sint Pauluskerk (St Paul’s Church) in Antwerp, Belgium offered a rare viewing experience as two masterpieces of the Flemish community were presented side by side for the first time in four hundred years. The Flagellation by Peter Paul Rubens and The Carrying of the Cross by Anthony van Dyck were temporarily displayed at eye level due to partial restoration work in the church.
Normally installed approximately four meters high, the paintings’ lowered placement allowed Slow Art Day participants to examine details that are usually difficult to see. Visitors were invited to spend time closely observing both works and share their observations and questions during guided discussion with the three guides who were present, Regina, Stéphane, and Armand.
Sint Pauluskerk has been a pioneering leader in the church wing of the Slow Art Day movement, and their continued involvement has helped demonstrate how churches and other religious organizations can become powerful spaces for slow looking.
We thank the wonderful Armand Storck and the team at St Paul’s Church for making this exceptional viewing opportunity possible and for supporting Slow Art Day 2025. We look forward to seeing what they come up with for Slow Art Day 2026.
For their first Slow Art Day 2025, the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT) in Lisbon, Portugal participated with a guided slow-looking session held within the exhibition Transe by Rui Moreira, whose work is known for its meditative atmosphere. The event featured these 6 works:
Mindfulness – “I’m a giant lost in the woods”
A Noite (O Telepata)
A máquina de emaranhar paisagens VII
Nossa Senhora do Aborto I
Telepata I
Eclipse I
Capturado com OldRoll Classic M.
The session was led by Mário J. Rodrigues, a psychologist and certified mindfulness teacher, who opened with a brief mindfulness exercise. Participants then looked slowly at each work for ten minutes. The session concluded with a group conversation, allowing participants to share observations and reflect on their emotional and sensory responses.
MAAT also holds monthly art and meditation sessions, and you can check out their programming on their website.
We thank Joana Simões Henriques, Head of Public Programmes at MAAT, for organizing this Slow Art Day experience, and look forward to seeing what they come up with for Slow Art Day 2026.
For Slow Art Day 2025, Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, North Carolina invited visitors to participate in a self-guided slow-looking experience designed to encourage careful observation and personal meaning-making. The museum emphasized that slow looking is not driven by curators or historians, but by individuals forming their own connections with artworks.
Visitors were encouraged to intentionally select three to four artworks and spend extended time with each, using a printed Guide to Slow Art that offered practical suggestions such as finding a comfortable place to sit, bringing a notebook and pencil, and building meaning through sustained observation and conversation with companions
Th guide suggested visitors spend time with artworks from the exhibition The Game Changers, which highlighted the Abstract Expressionist artists Helen Frankenthaler, Richard Diebenkorn, and Robert Rauschenberg. Suggested works included:
Girl Squatting (1960) by Richard Diebenkorn
Tiger’s Eye (1987) by Helen Frankenthaler
Autobiography (1968) by Robert Rauschenberg
From left to right: Helen Frankenthaler, Tiger’s Eye, 1987. Color etching, aquatint, lithograph, and silkscreen. Collection of Cameron Art Museum, Belden Collection. Richard Diebenkorn, Girl Squatting, 1960. Oil on canvas. On loan from the Akron Art Museum, purchased with funds from the Phyllis Albrecht Memorial Fund. Bottom: Robert Rauschenberg, Autobiography 1968. Offset lithography on paper. On loan from Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Gift of Blake Byre, A.B. ‘57. Slow Art Day participant viewing Robert Rauschenberg, Why You Can’t Tell #2, 1979. Lithograph and collage on paper. On loan from the Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Dorsky. Slow Art Day participants viewing Robert Rauschenberg, Autobiography 1968. Offset lithography on paper. On loan from Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Gift of Blake Byre, A.B. ‘57.
By offering a clear framework while leaving interpretation open, Cameron Art Museum created a Slow Art Day experience that supported independent exploration and reflection throughout the day.
Below is their front desk signage for the day, and you may download their Slow Art Day Flyer to see how they framed their instructions for the day. (PDF, 7.5 MB).
We thank Ashley Rowland, Education Assistant, and the Cameron Art Museum team for hosting Slow Art Day 2025 and look forward to seeing what they come up with for Slow Art Day 2026.
For Slow Art Day 2025, Bloomington–Normal, Illinois once again led a citywide Slow Art Day – they were the first to pioneer citywide events several years ago. Led by Pamela Eaton of Eaton Studio Gallery, the citywide Slow Art Day has grown into a statewide collaboration with a number of sponsors and leaders coming together. See the beautiful poster below.
The collaborative citywide scope of the event was documented by the Illinois Route 66 Scenic Byway. These photographs captured the range of venues and the conversations taking place across the city during the Slow Art Day weekend.
Here are a few reports we received from across the 2025 Citywide.
Eaton Studio Gallery At the Eaton Gallery, their Slow Art Day event centered on Star Crossed Pollinators, a refurbished sculpture by artist Herb Eaton originally created in 2000 for Bloomington’s Sesquicentennial celebrations. The work was on view during Slow Art Day as part of its refurbishment process ahead of its planned move to a permanent location at the McLean County Museum of History.
Photos below are of artist Herb Eaton with the original sculpture in 2000 on the left, and the new version in 2025 on the right.
Inside Out Accessible Art (IOAA) IOAA hosted artists demonstrating their techniques alongside other artists who brought individual works to discuss with patrons. The open format encouraged dialogue and allowed visitors to spend time with both artistic process and finished work. Photographs of the event below were taken by Shelley Schultz.
Red Raccoon Games Red Racoon in downtown Bloomington hosted artist Gina LaMonica, whose works were shown via the table setup below.
The Bloomington–Normal Slow Art Day demonstrated how a coordinated, multi-site approach can support slow looking at scale while remaining grounded in local artists, studios, and shared civic spaces. We thank Pamela Eaton, Eaton Studio Gallery, Inside Out Accessible Art, and all participating organizations and artists for making this citywide Slow Art Day possible. We look forward to seeing what they come up with for their citywide Slow Art Day in 2026.
For Slow Art Day 2025, Vänersborgs konsthall in Vänersborg, Sweden, hosted a guided slow-looking event centered on the exhibition A.I. vs Själen (A.I. vs the Soul). The program combined meditation, independent observation, and group dialogue in a focused gallery setting.
Participants engaging in slow looking and discussion during Slow Art Day at Vänersborgs konsthall. Photo courtesy of Vänersborgs konsthall.
Selected artworks were chosen by participants from two designated walls within the exhibition A.I. vs Själen (A.I vs the Soul)
Eleven participants took part in the free event. The session began with a short introduction to slow looking as a practice, followed by a guided meditation designed to help participants settle into the experience. From there, facilitators offered simple, structured prompts to support a 10-minute slow looking exercise. Participants then gathered to share reflections and discuss their thoughts. Conversations focused on perception, attention, and how the themes of technology, AI, and the human soul emerged through extended looking.
Following the discussion, the gallery invited participants to continue the conversation over a traditional Swedish fika, offering coffee and biscuits in a relaxed social setting.
Poster for the event.
We thank Hanna Tobiasson, Cultural Coordinator at Vänersborgs konsthall, for creating a Slow Art Day experience that thoughtfully engaged questions around technology and its growing influence on how art is created, perceived, and discussed today. We look forward to seeing what the team at Vänersborgs konsthall comes up with for Slow Art Day 2026.
For Slow Art Day 2025, yoga-based movement instructor Carol Rossi of Lobey Movement returned to Slow Art Day – she was a pioneer who helped launch the movement back in 2010 – and hosted her own slow-looking session at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, California. Drawing from her background in yoga and mindfulness, Rossi designed a self-guided Slow Art Day experience.
In preparation for the day, Rossi created and shared a dedicated Slow Art Day webpage that outlined simple viewing tips and a short guide to the artworks she selected. Her materials encouraged participants to spend extended time with each work, notice physical details and emotional responses, and resist the urge to move quickly. Rather than formal facilitation, the structure supported personal pacing and reflection, allowing participants to engage with the museum in a focused yet flexible way.
Rossi documented and reflected on the experience through LinkedIn and Instagram, sharing photographs, excerpts from her viewing guide, and personal observations about hosting Slow Art Day. These posts are great practical examples for others interested in creating their own Slow Art Day experiences to follow. Her approach shows how hosting can begin with clear intentions, simple prompts, and a willingness to invite others to slow down together.
At Slow Art Day HQ, we actively encourage this kind of individual-led design. Slow Art Day is not limited to institutions; anyone can host a slow-looking experience, whether as a yoga instructor, educator, designer, or community member. Resources like Carol Rossi’s website and posts offer concrete inspiration for those considering hosting their own event, much like other community-driven Slow Art Day efforts we have seen in recent years.
We thank Carol Rossi for her pioneering support of Slow Art Day, and for returning to work with us again. We look forward to seeing what she comes up with for Slow Art Day 2026.
For Slow Art Day 2025, students at the University of Alabama participated in a project titled Walking In It, developed under the direction of Professor Sharony Green and presented in connection with the Gorgas House Museum in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The project focused on an experimental video that encouraged people to notice walking and to think about it as something shaped by history and circumstance, not a simple experience that everyone can take for granted.
As part of the project, students enrolled in Professor Green’s Fall 2024 and Spring 2025 history courses contributed 30-second long videos of themselves walking through campus and around Tuscaloosa. These clips were combined into a single “digital quilt” bringing together repeated movement across shared spaces.
Gorgas House Museum on Slow Art Day.
The completed video was featured online and projected onto the exterior of the Gorgas House Museum on April 4, 2025, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. The projection was designed as a come-and-go experience, allowing Slow Art Day participants and passersby to encounter the work throughout the day. The setting of the projection on Gorgas House, the campus’s oldest dwelling constructed in 1829, provided historical context for the project’s focus on movement and access.
Watch the video projection:
Additional components were coordinated by Sonya Harwood-Johnson, Director of the Gorgas House Museum. These included interpretive displays featuring nineteenth-century shoes and an interactive station where members of the campus community could decorate miniature boots produced with a 3D printer, inspired by a Mexican artist’s project.
In addition to the video projection, the Slow Art Day project included a campus-wide scavenger hunt. Participants were invited to move through campus using the scavenger hunt prompts, with a prize offered to those who completed the activity.
Students also created a short video previewing the event, offering viewers a sense of the site and project setup:
The project received coverage in The Crimson White – Gorgas House hosts The University of Alabama’s submission to global Slow Art Day – the University of Alabama’s student newspaper, which reported on the Gorgas House Museum’s participation in the global Slow Art Day initiative. Across digital platforms, the project reached a wide audience, with more than 1,100 views on Instagram and over 1,200 additional views and impressions across other social media channels.
Professory Sharony Green and students.
We thank Sharony Green, Sonya Harwood-Johnson, and the participating students for their innovative Slow Art Day events, and look forward to seeing what they come up with for Slow Art Day 2026.
