A two-part online course with Claire Bown
Wednesdays 10 June & 24 June, 19:00–21:30 CET | Online
Live with Claire Bown | Recordings included | Open to all roles and departments
Slow looking has a way of changing how people experience a museum, gallery, or historic site. This course is about how to make that happen by design – whether you are building a programme or exhibition around slow looking, or bringing it into the work you do every day.
Across two live online sessions, you’ll explore how to design and facilitate slow looking in your own museum or cultural organisation – in ways that work in real contexts, with real time pressures, and real audiences.
This course is led by Claire Bown, founder of Thinking Museum® and author of The Art Engager: Reimagining Guided Experiences in Museums. Drawing on more than a decade of working with museums and cultural organisations internationally, Claire shares the design and facilitation choices that make slow looking work in real settings.
In each session, you’ll experience slow looking as a participant, explore the thinking behind how it is designed and facilitated, and consider how these approaches might work in your own context.
How the course works
- Two online sessions on Zoom, 2.5 hours each, two weeks apart
- Live sessions with Claire Bown and an international cohort of peers from across the museum and cultural sector
- Flexibility to join live or watch the recordings when it suits you
- Space between sessions to reflect, experiment, and try ideas in your own setting
- A practical grounding in designing and facilitating slow looking that you can take straight into your work
Who this course is for
This course is for anyone who wants to bring more slow looking into their work in museums, galleries, historic sites, cultural organisations, and related settings.
While the course is rooted in museum and cultural contexts, the key practices are useful to people from a wide range of fields — including teaching, coaching, therapeutic practice, and community work. If you’re interested in how slow looking can shape the way you work with others, you’ll find a place here.
It is ideal if you are:
- Designing or delivering experiences with visitors, groups or audiences of any kind
- Encouraging more slow looking in your existing programmes, tours, or sessions
- Building slow looking into exhibitions, new galleries, or one-off events
- Thinking about how slow looking might become part of the culture of your organisation rather than a single offering
- Working in busy, time-limited environments and looking for ways to create space for attention
No prior experience is needed. This course provides a clear introduction and practical tools to help you start developing your own slow looking programmes.
Course structure
Two live 2.5-hour sessions on Zoom with Claire Bown. Join live or watch the recordings at a time that suits you.
Session 1: Designing for attention and engagement (Wednesday, 10 June 19:00–21:30 CET)
In this first session, we’ll look at what slow looking really asks of participants, and what it asks of the people designing the experience. We’ll explore the foundations of slow looking and the design choices that shape how an experience unfolds — from structuring time and pace, to the questioning approaches you use, to designing an entry that helps people focus and feel ready to take part. You’ll experience slow looking as a participant and unpack the design choices behind it, with space to reflect on how these ideas might work in your own context.
Session 2: Facilitating in real-world contexts (Wednesday, 24 June 19:00–21:30 CET)
Building on Session 1, this session turns to facilitation — how to guide a slow looking experience with confidence and flexibility, and how to adapt it to the realities of your work. We’ll consider how to balance participant contributions with sharing information, how to hold the room when attention drifts, and how to adapt slow looking for tours, workshops, drop-in formats, exhibitions, and broader organisational practice. You’ll take part in a second guided experience and explore the facilitation choices that shape it, with time to consider how to bring these approaches into your own setting.
What to expect in each session
- Time and space to consider how these approaches might look in your own context, whatever your role or setting
- A live, guided slow looking experience with an artwork or object, where you take part as a participant before unpacking the design and facilitation choices behind it
- Practical approaches you can adapt and use straight away – whether you work directly with audiences, behind the scenes, or somewhere in between
- A welcoming, supportive space to explore ideas, ask questions, and learn alongside an international cohort of peers
- Breakout room discussions, chat conversations, and reflection prompts that give you the chance to share your own thinking and hear from others
🌍 Joining from around the world
All sessions take place live on Wednesdays from 7:00–9:30pm CET (Amsterdam).
You can take part live or watch recordings at a time that suits you.
Typical local times:
Amsterdam / Berlin / Paris: 7:00–9:30pm
London / Lisbon / Reykjavík: 6:00–8:30pm
Helsinki / Athens: 8:00–10:30pm
New York / Toronto (ET): 1:00–3:30pm
Chicago (CT): 12:00–2:30pm
Denver (MT): 11:00am–1:30pm
Los Angeles (PT): 10:00am–12:30pm
Sydney / Melbourne: 5:00–7:30am (next day)
Auckland: 7:00–9:30am (next day)
You can confirm your local time here.
Recordings and resources will be available after every session.
What’s included
When you register, you will have access to:
- Two live 2.5-hour sessions with Claire Bown on Zoom
- Recordings of both sessions, available for a limited period
- Downloadable resources and prompts to support your learning
- Practical examples and approaches you can apply straight away
- A supportive cohort of international peers from across the museum and cultural sector
- A certificate of completion (PDF) – upon request
Course Details
- Format: Online, live sessions
- Dates: Wednesday 10 June & Wednesday 24 June
- Time: 19:00–21:30 CET
- Duration: 2.5 hours per session
- Individual participant: €275
- Small group / up to 8 participants: €1,495
Pricing & Registration
Individual Registration
€275
Includes all live sessions, recordings and resources.
Team Registration
€1,495
Up to 8 participants from the same organisation
NB: Names and email addresses for all participants will be requested upon registration for team sign ups.
If you’d prefer to enrol a larger group, please get in touch for tailored group pricing.
VAT will be calculated automatically at checkout according to your location.
Stripe handles this securely and in full compliance with EU and international VAT regulations.
Frequently Asked Questions
What if I can’t attend live? All sessions are recorded and made available to registered participants for a limited period after the course ends. You can join live, watch the recordings at a time that suits you, or do a mix of both.
Do I need any prior experience with slow looking? No prior experience is needed. The course offers a clear grounding in slow looking and practical approaches you can adapt to your own context, whether you’re new to the practice or already using it in your work.
Is this course only relevant for people who work with art? Not at all. Slow looking applies across all kinds of objects, exhibits, sites, and contexts — historic houses, science centres, natural history collections, gardens, and beyond. Examples in the course are drawn from a range of settings.
Is this course suitable for my role if I don’t work directly with visitors? Yes. The course is relevant for anyone shaping how people encounter collections, spaces, and stories — whether you work in programming, curatorial, exhibitions, interpretation, or any related role.
How big is the cohort? The course is designed for a larger international cohort, which means a wide range of perspectives, contexts, and experiences in the room. You’ll have opportunities to share your thinking and hear from others through breakout discussions, chat, and reflection prompts.
Will I need to speak or contribute? You’re welcome to take part as much or as little as feels right for you. Sessions include opportunities to share your thinking — through chat, breakouts, and reflection prompts — but there’s no pressure to speak aloud if you prefer to listen and absorb.
Will the sessions include breakout rooms? Yes. Breakout rooms are part of how each session is designed, giving you the chance to discuss ideas with smaller groups of peers.
How much time do I need to commit between sessions? The two weeks between sessions are designed to give you space to absorb the ideas and try things out in your own context. There’s no required homework, but you’ll get more out of the course if you bring some of your own experience and reflection back to session two.
How long will I have access to the recordings and resources? Recordings and resources are available to registered participants for a limited period after the course ends.
Will I get a certificate? Yes — a PDF certificate of completion is available to anyone who has registered for the course.
What if English isn’t my first language? The course is taught in English, but participants come from a wide range of language backgrounds. Slides, prompts, and resources are written clearly, and recordings allow you to revisit any session at your own pace.
Is this relevant for teams working across different departments? Yes. The course is well-suited to teams whose work touches on visitor experience in different ways — from learning and engagement to curatorial, interpretation, exhibitions, and front-of-house. Team registration is available for up to eight participants from the same organisation.
Can my organisation pay by invoice? Yes. If your organisation needs to pay by invoice rather than card, please get in touch and we’ll arrange this.