On April 13th, Simone Raskin, art consultant and trainer at the Gallery L’Art de Regarder, organized the first official Slow Art Day in Bordeaux, sponsored by the Mairie de Bordeaux (the Bordeaux Town Hall) and hosted at the Espace Saint Rémi.
The Espace Saint Rémi was a church before the French Revolution and has over the centuries transformed into what is now a cultural center for exhibitions. Since 1991, the space has hosted a yearly photography exhibition titled Itinéraires des Photographes Voyageurs, which was created and organized by Nathalie Lamire-Fabre and Vincent Bengold as part of the first Mois de la Photo de Bordeaux (month of photography in Bordeaux).
The slow looking focused on the following 6 works from the photography exhibition:
- Patrick Cockpit, “Pasaran, une dystopie franquiste”
- Lise Dua, “Les loyautés & Une vie”
- Charlotte Auricombe, “Cau Del Llop”
- Benoît Capponi, “Toutes les heures blessent”
- Sladjana Stankovic, “La Douce“
- Thierry Girard, “The Tenjin Omuta Line”
The Slow Art Day event was not promoted separately, so Simone greeted the 250+ visitors with an explanation of slow looking, and invited participants to sit in chairs that were arranged in front of the works. She provided them with the following prompts to guide their experience:
- What’s going on in this picture?
- What is it that attracts you in this particular photography?
- What is the mood of the photo?
- What are the colors? What do they evoke to you?
- What is the composition of this photo?
- If you were to say one word about this photo, what would it be?
- Does it remind you of a painting, a souvenir, a memory, a personal experience?
Below are some of the works in the event:
Simone reported that many of the participants thanked her for the event, and they were quite appreciative for the prompts that she provided. Several mentioned that they would try slow looking at future museum visits.
At Slow Art Day HQ we are so glad to hear that the event was so well-received and look forward to whatever Simone Raskin, Mairie de Bordeaux, or Espace Saint Rémi plan for Slow Art Day 2025!
– Jessica Jane, Johanna, Ashley, and Phyl