For their first Slow Art Day, the Museum of Chelmsford in Essex, United Kingdom invited visitors to slow down with art using a simple framework: See – Think – Wonder. The activity took place within the exhibition Shifting Perspectives: Exploring Art Together, which ran in the museum’s temporary gallery space through November 2, 2025.
To guide visitors, the museum created a set of “See Think Wonder” cards that guests could pick up in the gallery. The cards encouraged people to slow down and consider different ways of engaging with artworks — an approach that works not only in museums but whenever people encounter art in daily life.
Visitors were invited to explore artworks through three stages of looking.
See — what catches your eye? Look at the colors the artist used. Explore the atmosphere of the picture. Can you copy the pose or expression of any figures you see?
Think — can you imagine yourself inside the picture? What might the artist be trying to say to us? Does the title change how you see the picture?
Wonder — what might happen next in the picture? What conversations might be taking shape? What unanswered questions do you have about the picture?
This simple structure gave visitors permission to take their time and engage with artworks through curiosity rather than expertise.
Featured works included:
• “Cecil Collins at the CSA” by Rosalind Cuthbert
• “Point of View” by Doris Boulton-Maude (1892–1976)
The museum’s See–Think–Wonder cards were inspired by the I Picture This toolkit developed by the The Wallace Collection, a past Slow Art Day participant.
At Slow Art Day HQ we love the simple See–Think–Wonder cards – they are easy to use with any artwork, and help shift the experience from passive viewing to active discovery. We encourage other museums and galleries to copy these.
Since this was the Museum of Chelmsford’s first Slow Art Day, we’re especially happy to welcome them to the global Slow Art Day movement and look forward to seeing what the Museum of Chelmsford comes up with for Slow Art Day 2026.
– Ashley, Johanna, Jessica Jane, and Phyl