When did you last spend more than 30 seconds looking at something in a museum? What if just three minutes could completely change what you see and feel?
This practice – called slow looking – has become the foundation of the most engaging museum discussions I’ve facilitated over the past decade. Here’s everything you need to know to start transforming your museum experiences today.
What Is Slow Looking?
Slow looking is a practice, mindset and approach involving the study of objects with intention and attention.
It’s not simply about duration – although our aim is always to try and look longer than we normally would. It’s more about the quality of our attention rather than the quantity of time.
At its heart is a simple belief: that engagement starts with slow looking. It’s been the secret to the most engaging discussions I’ve facilitated in museums, and it’s a practice that anyone can learn and benefit from.
If you want to dive deeper into the fundamentals, I explore all of this in detail in What is Slow Looking and How Can I Get Started?
Two Approaches to Slow Looking
I like to think about slow looking in terms of two general approaches:
Introspective slow looking involves analysing something in relation to your own feelings, experiences, and thoughts. This might include mindfulness and meditation, and deep personal connections to what you’re observing.
Extrospective slow looking explores meanings, possibilities and interpretations, potentially focusing more on the artist, maker, historical context, or other layers of meaning.
You may lean more towards one approach or the other, although both can be present in a single slow looking experience. The beauty is that there’s no right or wrong way to do it.
Why Slow Looking Matters: The Benefits
The benefits of slow looking extend far beyond simply seeing more details in an artwork. Here are some of the most compelling reasons to embrace this practice:
Developing Observational Skills: In our fast-paced world, we’re losing the ability to really see. Slow looking helps rebuild that observational muscle, improving our ability to notice details and nuances in everything around us.
Improving Wellbeing: Art triggers the release of feel-good chemicals in our brains. When we engage deeply with artwork through slow looking, we’re essentially giving ourselves a natural mood boost.
Building Patience: In a culture that values speed above everything else, slow looking teaches us the value of patience. As Jennifer Roberts discovered with her famous 3-hour exercise with Harvard students, real insights often come only after we’ve pushed past our initial impatience.
Fostering Curiosity: The longer we look, the more questions arise. Slow looking naturally cultivates curiosity, leading us to notice things we never would have seen in a quick glance.
Universal Accessibility: Perhaps most importantly, everyone can participate in slow looking. No art historical knowledge is required – just your eyes and willingness to spend time with something.
For a deeper exploration of these benefits and more, listen to 12 Reasons to Get Started with Slow Looking, where I unpack each of these in detail.
The Slow Movement Connection
No-one seems to know exactly where slow looking came from. I can trace it’s roots back to being part of a broader ‘slow movement’ that began over 20 years ago, championing the idea of slowing down in various aspects of life.
As bestselling author Carl Honoré explains, the slow movement isn’t just about slowing down for its own sake, but about finding the right speed for each situation.
I had the fascinating opportunity to chat with Carl directly about these connections in Slow Art and the Power of Slowing Down. Our conversation explores how slowness can ‘rehumanise’ us and how slow art serves as an antidote to fast-paced culture.
Slow Art Day: A Global Movement
Slow Art Day has also been influential in bringing slow art and slow looking into the mainstream. This annual international event encourages participants worldwide to look at and discuss art slowly, embodying what founder Phyl Terry calls “radical inclusivity” – the idea that anyone can engage with art without prior knowledge, simply through looking and reflecting.
What started with Phyl’s hour-long experience with a single painting has grown into a global movement. Every April, hundreds of venues around the world host Slow Art Day events where participants spend time with just a few artworks, then discuss what they’ve discovered together.
What started with an hour-long experience with a single painting has now grown into a global phenomenon, with hundreds of venues participating each April.
To understand the full origin story, check out Exploring Slow Art Day and Slow Looking with Phyl Terry. You can also explore how different organizations have made it their own in Slow looking in sacred spaces: Antwerp’s church-based Slow Art Day movement and Slow Looking in the Van Gogh Museum.
The Van Gogh Museum’s participation is particularly noteworthy because it addresses a common concern: “We can’t do slow looking because we’re too busy.” If one of the world’s busiest museums can make it work, any museum can.
Building Your Personal Slow Looking Practice
The best way to understand slow looking is to experience it yourself. Start by making slow looking part of your daily life – you’ll get a far more nuanced understanding by appreciating the benefits for yourself first.
Try taking a walk focusing on a particular color, or look at the view out of your window every day for a few minutes, noticing what’s different and what’s the same. You can practice with anything – you don’t need to be in a museum! The key is building that observational muscle so slow looking becomes something that feels very natural to you.
For more practical activities and detailed guidance on building your personal practice, see How to Develop a Daily Slow Looking Practice. I also share seasonal activities here, here and here that you can use year-round to strengthen your observational skills – and you can use them regardless of the season! If you’ve taken part in Slow Art Day and would like to continue your slow looking practice afterwards, there is some great advice here.
Making Space and Time for Slow Looking
For educators and museum docents, slow looking can transform museum experiences and educational programmes. But how do you make time for it in a busy guided tour?
The most common concern I hear is “I don’t have time for slow looking.”
This is based on a misunderstanding of what slow looking actually requires. You don’t need hours – even incorporating 3-5 minutes of focused observation can dramatically change the quality of engagement in any program.
The key is to think of slow looking not as an add-on, but as the foundation of engagement. When people have really looked at something, they have so much more to discuss and explore.
I dive deep into this challenge and provide practical solutions in Making Space and Time for Slow Looking – one of my personal favourites because it suggests 5 ways you can incorporate slow looking into all types of museum and gallery programmes – even the busiest of highlights tours!
Questioning Practices: Adding Structure
While slow looking can happen naturally, having a framework makes it more accessible for both facilitators and participants. Questioning Practices are structured sets of questions or prompts that give discussions “a little bit of structure” while allowing facilitators to bring their unique style to every interaction.
To learn more about what Questioning Practices are, why they’re important, and how they can actively support question use and foster participation during guided experiences, check out What are Questioning Practices?
Working with Different Techniques
For even more practical tools, How to Look at Art (Slowly) is my free resource guide offering 30+ different ways to look at art or objects in museums. The guide covers Static Looking, Movement, Observation by Drawing, Observation by Writing, and Viewfinders – all coded for solo or group use.
You can learn more about the guide here. These are concrete techniques you can use immediately to implement slow looking.
Speaking of practical resources, I have two others that will really help you get started with slow looking. My Slow Art Guide is a user-friendly, two-page guide offering six simple steps to guide you through the process of slow looking, along with lots of helpful tips.
And I’ve also recently published a new free resource – get my 24 Simple Slow Looking Prompts – a pocket-sized collection of thoughtful ways to engage more deeply with art and objects in museums. Print this one out, and take it with you into the museum. Perfect for anyone wanting to slow down and really see what they’re looking at.
Going Deeper: Advanced Applications
Once you’ve got the basics down, there are some deeper aspects of slow looking worth exploring – both in terms of advanced techniques and understanding how slow looking works in social settings.
Learning to Love ‘Boring’ Objects
Every museum has its superstar objects that get all the attention, while others are overlooked. Slow looking can transform your relationship with these so-called ‘boring’ objects. When you spend focused time with something that doesn’t immediately grab your attention, you often discover hidden depths and unexpected beauty.
This is as valuable for educators and guides as it is for visitors. Learning to love overlooked objects in a collection means you’ll have genuine enthusiasm to share when working with groups.
I explore this concept in depth in Learning to Love ‘Boring’ Objects through Slow Looking, where I share examples of objects that only came to life for me after spending focused time with them.
Slow Looking and Empathy
Research shows that careful observation can develop empathy. When we really look at artwork – especially portraits or scenes depicting human experiences – we practice paying attention to details about emotion, body language, and human experience that translate into better understanding of others in our daily lives.
Brazilian educator Kenia Santos shares beautiful insights about this connection in Slow Looking and Empathy, where she explains how she keeps teenage students engaged for three hours through this practice.
Multi-Sensory Slow Engagement
Slow looking principles extend beyond the visual. ‘Slow listening’ can transform engagement with music, allowing deeper connection through philosophical questioning and focused attention to sound. Museums are exploring how all the senses can be engaged in slow, intentional ways.
You can hear how this works in practice in Slow Listening and philosophical questioning with Cecilie Skøtt, where we explore engaging students with classical music through philosophical questioning.
Therapeutic Applications
Slow looking is increasingly being used with specific populations for therapeutic purposes. Programs for psychiatric service users, trauma survivors, and other vulnerable communities have found that slow looking creates safe spaces for connection and reflection, demonstrating the powerful impact this practice can have both inside and outside the museum.
To read about this in action, see here Cecilie Monrad shares how their 15-week programme See Listen Talk helps young psychiatric service users in their recovery.
Overcoming Common Obstacles
“I don’t see anything interesting”: This usually means you haven’t looked long enough. Push past the initial impatience – insights often come after the 2-3 minute mark.
“I don’t know enough about art”: Knowledge is not required for slow looking. Your observations and responses are valid regardless of your background.
“My visitors are too impatient”: Start very small – even 30 seconds of focused looking is better than none. Build up gradually.
“We don’t have time in our programs”: Remember that slow looking enhances rather than replaces other activities. People who have really looked have much more to discuss.
Research and Evidence
Recent studies have begun to document what practitioners have long known intuitively – that slow looking, particularly in social settings, significantly enhances the museum experience. Research on social interaction during slow looking shows that group experiences are particularly powerful, creating connections not just with art but between participants.
For the research details, check out Slow Looking and Social Interaction in Museums, where Sasha Igdalova shares her groundbreaking studies on slow looking’s effectiveness.
This research backing is important for institutions considering implementing slow looking programs, providing evidence for what many educators have experienced firsthand.
Starting Your Slow Looking Journey
The beauty of slow looking is that you can start anywhere. Whether you’re a museum professional looking to enhance your programs, an educator wanting to deepen student engagement, or simply someone who wants to get more out of your museum visits, the principles remain the same.
If you’re new to slow looking: Start with just three minutes with a single artwork or object. Notice what captures your attention first, then let your eyes wander. What questions arise? What details do you notice after the first minute that you missed initially?
If you’re an educator: Try incorporating just one moment of slow looking into your next session. Give participants permission to simply look for 2-3 minutes before starting discussion. Notice how this changes the quality of conversation.
If you’re a museum professional: Consider how your institution might participate in Slow Art Day, or how you might incorporate slow looking principles into existing programme or new temporary exhibitions.
Contact me for a workshop or consultancy support to help implement slow looking in your context.
The goal isn’t to slow everything down, but to create moments of deeper engagement that enrich the entire experience. In our fast-paced world, these moments of intentional attention become increasingly precious – and increasingly powerful.
Resources for Further Exploration
Keen to dive deeper into slow looking?
For a complete roadmap through all these topics, explore the full collection of episodes I’ve mentioned throughout this guide. If you want to know where to start based on your specific needs:
- New to slow looking? Start here
- Want to convince others of its value? Go here
- Ready to implement in your work? Try here and here
- Curious about the global movement? Explore all the Slow Art Day episodes here
You can also download my free resources: Slow Art Guide, How to Look at Art (Slowly) with 30+ techniques, and my brand new 24 Simple Slow Looking Prompts.
The most important thing is to start. Find that observational muscle, give yourself permission to slow down, and see what you discover. In a world that seems to constantly demand our hurried attention, slow looking offers a different way of being – one that’s more human, more connected, and ultimately more rewarding.
So next time you’re in a museum, gallery, or even just walking down the street, try it. Slow down, look closer, and see what you discover. You might be surprised by what emerges when you give something the gift of your full attention.
©️ Claire Bown, June 2025