New to The Art Engager podcast? Not quite sure where to start? You’re not alone. Here are 12 thought-provoking episodes chosen by Claire Bown, host of The Art Engager.
Terje Äkke, wrote a lovely post about discovering The Art Engager podcast on LinkedIn:
‘…When the algorithm observed that I listened to a clip about slowing down, it sent another post with a link to a podcast …to my feed. Claire Bown is an advocate for slow looking and the episode on The Art Engager I listened to included research about aesthetic experience, slow looking and social interaction for wellbeing in museum environment. I was hooked and now I have a list of more episodes to listen to. I also want to try out a slow looking session in a gallery. 🙂’In the comments, Terje invited me to “please recommend some (episodes) that you find especially useful, interesting or thought-provoking from the 132 episodes that you have created. “
As The Art Engager is currently on a short (summer) sabbatical, I couldn’t let this opportunity pass to recommend some of my favourite episodes. It also gives me a great excuse to have a break from the endless to-do list involved in getting my book ready for publication.
Here’s a list (in no particular order) of useful, interesting and thought-provoking episodes to get started:
Exploring The Art of Noticing with Rob Walker
Rob Walker is author of The Art of Noticing and its excellent spinoff newsletter. He’s a columnist for Fast Company, a longtime contributor to The New York Times and many other publications.
The Art of Noticing is one of my favourite books of the past few years, so I was absolutely thrilled when Rob Walker agreed to be on the podcast.
In this conversation, we discuss what’s wrong with our attention in today’s distracted world and debate whether noticing is a habit, a mindset or a skill. We chat about how we can build ‘attention muscles’ and Rob shares some of the 131 (!) different ideas for noticing from The Art of Noticing.
Rob emphasises that noticing is crucial for connecting with our surroundings and finding joy in everyday moments.
Values-engaged Gallery Teaching with Andrew Westover
In this episode, I chat with Andrew Westover, Director of Education at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, about how teaching with values can enhance educational experiences.
Practically speaking, teaching from our values means incorporating our core beliefs into how we teach. This becomes especially valuable when challenges or unexpected situations arise.
During our conversation, Andrew emphasises the importance of genuine connection in museum settings, and how meaningful experiences are built on authentic, rather than superficial, interactions . We also explore practical strategies for handling conflicts during discussions, including how to address emotional responses effectively.
How to build rapport
I recently wrote an article for the Journal of Museum Education inspired by the coaching training I did in 2022.
In ‘ Fostering a coaching mindset: applying coaching competencies to enhance museum educator practice and visitor experience‘ I explored how museum educators can benefit from using coaching skills to enhance their teaching and improve the visitor experience.
One of the competencies I talked about in this article is building rapport.
Rapport is quite a subtle or nuanced concept. It’s also not something that comes up in everyday conversation. This episode discusses what rapport is, why it matters and how you can build more of it.
How silence is a superpower in museum and gallery programmes + 7 Ways to Make Time and Space for Silence
Can staying quiet or not speaking be beneficial? Is silence actually ‘golden’?
In the first of this two-part series of silence (Episodes 95 and 96) I am talking about why silence matters and why we should be harnessing this superpower to enhance our programmes. Why is silence beneficial?
But silence is not something that everyone is comfortable with – so I’m also discussing possible reasons behind this and how you can overcome this discomfort.
If you’d like to learn how to create more space and time for silence, listen to the follow up episode too!
Get the Picture: How to engage with art with Bianca Bosker
Bianca Boska is an award-winning journalist and author of the brilliant book ‘Get The Picture: A Mind-Bending Journey among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends Who Taught Me How to See‘.
Bianca immersed herself for 5 years into the New York art scene as a gallery assistant, artist assistant, curator, museum security guard and more as part of a journey to understand why art matters and how we can engage with it more deeply.
In this chat, Bianca shares what she discovered about the art world, how her relationship with art has evolved, and how her experiences with various artworks have changed the way she sees the world.
Exploring Slow Art Day and Slow Looking with Phyl Terry
I’ve been actively involved and an advocate for Slow Art Day since 2012, so it was a delight to sit down and chat with Slow Art Day’s founder Phyl Terry in 2023. Slow Art Day is an annual event that encourages participants worldwide to look at and discuss art slowly. To date, over 1,500 museums and galleries on every continent, including Antarctica’s McMurdo Station, have participated in Slow Art Day. In this chat we discuss the “radical inclusivity” inherent in Slow Art Day, the different types of organisations that take part (it’s not just museums) and why it’s important to slow down and spend more looking at things.
Making space and time for slow looking
Continuing with the theme of slow looking, Episode 82 aims to debunk myths surrounding the practice, particularly the mistaken idea that it always takes a long time.
This episode shares 3 main reasons why it’s important to make space and time for slow looking. And plenty of ways you can incorporate it into your practice, even if you think you don’t have the time or the space.
How to enjoy art (without knowing anything about it)
Ben Street is an author, educator and art historian. This episode talks about his new book ‘How to Enjoy Art: A Guide for Everyone’. We discuss why we rarely feel we need to read about a piece of music before we listen to it, but with art, we feel we need to know something about it to look at it. And that artworks come ‘wrapped in text’ before we can even get to them. Why is this? How has this come about?
Looking at life like a work of art with Marina Gross Hoy
In Episode 68, Marina Gross Hoy shares how, one evening in 2020, she realised that she would look more closely into a painting of a sunset than looking at the one right in front of her.
And this led her to experimenting with what it would mean to look at her life like a work of art, using what she started calling ‘the museum gaze’. We discuss how observing life with the same gaze we use with art in a museum works in practice and the numerous benefits we can glean from a regular practice of looking at life in this way.
How mindfulness and drawing can help us to connect with art with Karly Allen
UK-based gallery educator, drawing tutor and mindfulness teacher Karly Allen and I explore how mindfulness and meditation practices, artwork observation and drawing interrelate with each other.
And how drawing with mindfulness creates connections, opens us up to creativity and helps us to overcome any resistance we might have to drawing or the fear of the blank page.
We talk extensively about the benefits and how it help us to tune into a mode of being being open, letting go of preconceptions and habitual patterns of looking.
7 Ways to Improve your Active Listening Skills
Most of us think we’re good listeners. But are we really?
Listening is one of the most important skills in our toolbox. But few of us know how to really listen. It’s just not something we’re taught.
This episode will help you to work on your listening skills. I’m sharing 7 tips with you to improve your active listening skills and help you to choose the right level of listening for when you’re communicating with others. Share this one widely – listening is one of the keys to a better society!
THE ART ENGAGER: REIMAGINING GUIDED EXPERIENCES IN MUSEUMS
My book The Art Engager: Reimagining Guided Experiences in Museums explores the Thinking Museum® Approach in full.
You will learn how to give your discussions a flexible structure and substance using my 10 Questioning Practices; how to share information as a tool to engage your audience and how best to engage your group with facilitation skills, and more.
Full of practical steps & helpful advice, this book provides you with everything you need to create engaging guided experiences in museums.
The Art Engager: Reimagining Guided Experiences in Museums will be published soon as an e-book and a print edition too.
If you want to hear more about it and be one of the first to get your own copy, sign up below!