PODCAST

This week on the podcast: I’m delighted to be talking to Yaël van Loosbroek – Speck about art and mental healthYaël believes, like me, that everyone can engage with art, and that it all starts with looking – hence the name of her company, ArtSee.About ten years ago Yaël herself suffered from depression and severe… Read...

The ability to ask powerful, relevant and incisive questions is one of the most useful skills you can have.  With a good questioning technique you can instantly engage people, provoke their curiosity, find out what they already know and make your programmes more interactive. Questioning is not an innate talent for most of us –… Read...

Today we’re exploring 9 different ways that looking at art can make you a better writer.  Throughout the ages, looking at art has been a unique way of finding inspiration and creativity. If you go as far back as the Greeks, you can find examples of writing inspired by art, called ekphrasis, which means “a literary… Read...

For our last episode of the year, I’m sharing 3 slow looking activities for over the holidays.  It’s a busy time of year and we’re all rushed off our feet. There’s also still a huge amount of uncertainty around right now just to add to the levels of stress and anxiety. Slow looking is a… Read...

This week I’m delighted to be talking to Claire Bradshaw. Claire is an experienced coach, trainer and facilitator who brings a lot of positive energy and curiosity to her work. In today’s chat we talk about the values that drive her work, listening with full attention, the power of questions, and her passion for outdoor… Read...

Awe is an emotion that can be triggered by being around something larger than yourself, that’s not immediately understandable. It’s that feeling you get when you look up and see millions of stars in the night sky; witness a beautiful landscape or set eyes on an artwork for the first time.  Museums and galleries, historic… Read...

This week on the podcast: I’m delighted to be talking to Jo-Anne Sunderland Bowe and we’re talking about how to teach with objects.   Jo-Anne is director of Heritec Limited, a UK-based heritage education consultancy which works on European collaborative projects. Jo-Anne has a keen interest in object-based learning and creative and critical thinking.  in… Read...

For our thirtieth episode, I’m delighted to be talking to Catherine Chastney. Catherine is an art educator and owner of social enterprise I Picture This. Catherine’s work focuses on bringing art and the joy of discussing art to older people, from creating conversations in care homes, to creating art cards during lockdown and working with… Read...

So in today’s episode I’m talking about how to develop a reflective practice in your work. A reflective practice is simply the art of thinking about or reflecting on what you do. It is a way of recognising, capturing and articulating what we’re learning on a moment by moment basis. By following any of the… Read...

Today I’m focusing on colour. Colour is one of the 7 elements of art along with shape, line, form, texture, value and space. It’s a vast subject – but today I don’t want to focus on colour theory or the science of colour. Instead, I want to get you thinking about how you approach colour… Read...

Today I’m delighted to be talking to Kenia Santos – an educator based in Brazil with specialisations and interests in art history, philosophical inquiry, social and emotional learning, thinking routines and slow looking.  We discuss how she uses thinking routines in her work to encourage and develop slow looking,  how she keeps her teenage students engaged… Read...

The traditional lecture-style guided tour is dead, long live the interactive tour! Well, it’s not actually, it’s still alive and kicking in some quarters, but in my opinion it shouldn’t be the way we think about guided tours in the 21st Century. Traditional lecture-style ‘walk and talk ‘ guided tours with an expert guide are… Read...

This week’s episode is inspired by recent classes in the Visible Thinking Membership where we’ve been exploring the concept of using drawing and sketching for slow looking and observation.  When people are learning how to draw, they actually learn how to observe first. And being a sketcher makes you a better observer – it’s as… Read...

Today I’m really excited to be chatting to Louise Thompson – a museums and wellbeing consultant as well as the health and wellbeing manager at Manchester Art Gallery for the past 9 years. We’re talking how about art and objects can be used to learn wellbeing skills and improve mental health. Louise has over 12… Read...

Have you ever asked a question that was greeted with nothing but silence? You look around and all you can see are blank faces. The silence is scary because you don’t know what people are thinking. It could mean anything. You wait a little longer and still nothing happens. Just the sound of tumbleweed rustling… Read...

In the past week I’ve just started teaching my Visible Thinking in the Museum Online course (VTMO) to a group of international educators excited to start confidently leading  discussions around art and objects.  There’s always a buzz when we get going and an enthusiasm to learn as much as you can as quickly as possible.  But… Read...

Today I’m really excited to be introducing our first guest chat on the podcast – Samantha Boffin. Samantha is a voice actor, director and audio drama coach working with clients on voice technique, voiceover and communication.⁠ Your voice is one of your biggest assets when it comes to storytelling, entertaining and engaging your audience. In… Read...

Today I’m talking about the 6 core elements in my popular Visible Thinking in the Museum Online (VTMO) course – elements that you should also have in your educator repertoire to connect with your audience and engage them with art and objects. I’m sharing with you: How the course came about during the start of… Read...

Would you love to learn how to design and lead engaging discussions around art and objects in just 4 days? On Monday through to Thursday next week, I’ll be sharing 4 principles that are key 🔑 for creating engagement and connection when you’re designing and leading art discussions. ⁠ In this BONUS podcast episode (a… Read...

Today I’m sharing some thoughts about how you can successfully design and lead engaging discussion-based programmes around art and objects. I’ll be talking briefly about the difference between different types of ‘talking’ in museum education – conversations, discussions and dialogue – before moving into 11 tips for success in creating conversations around art and objects.… Read...

Leading tours and educational programmes that are based on discussion, inquiry and interaction can be a scary business. Both for you and for your participants. And if you’re about to take your first steps, it might seem really daunting. However, do remember that any concerns you have are perfectly normal and you’re not alone (we’ve… Read...

Over the past year, I’ve attended some fantastic interactive online sessions and I’ve led hundreds of my own.⁠ I’ve also attended some pretty dull one-way presentations and long lectures. No matter what type of session you are leading – be it a virtual tour, an online art discussion, an online class or course – you… Read...

Today I’m doing a deep dive on the most famous and well-known thinking routine of them all – See Think Wonder.  I’m going to share with you how you can use this thinking routine in your art discussions and why it’s one of the best routines for getting started with Visible Thinking in the Museum… Read...

How can you improve your questioning skills without resorting to reading long lists of tips and techniques and do’s and don’ts? What can you use to help you create, sort and evaluate better questions? The simple answer is: ART. I’ve been using artworks for years to help me to brainstorm, sort, re-word and improve my… Read...

Today I’m sharing 5 simple slow looking ideas for the summer.  In our fast-paced society, we scan, we skim and we scroll. We have forgotten what it’s like to really look at something. Slow looking is a wonderful alternative to life in the fast lane. The 5 activities I’ll be sharing in this episode are… Read...

Today I’m talking all about how to use the ‘Unveiling Stories’ thinking routine to investigate multiple layers of meaning with a photograph. This is part of a new series of episodes on the podcast where I share a thinking routine with you and all the insights for how you might be able to use it… Read...

Many of us are experts in our field – possibly art historians, historians or archaeologists – and want to share that incredible knowledge with the groups we lead in our programmes. But knowing what information to share, how to share it and when to share it is often tricky – especially on interactive, discussion-based programmes.… Read...

Perspective-taking is about seeing a situation or understanding a concept from an alternative view point, such as that of someone else. It is a skill that needs to be encouraged – particularly in children.  Your brain has to work quite hard to get good at perspective-taking. And in the opposite direction of what it is hard-wired… Read...

So, this week in honour of our 10th episode I’m talking about 10 common traps to avoid when asking questions!  For some people questioning comes easily. But for the majority of us, we are not asking enough questions AND we’re not phrasing them in the best way.  The good news is that we can all… Read...

Welcome back to the Art Engager podcast! Today I’m talking about building rapport and creating a great group dynamic in the ‘new now’.  Creating a great group dynamic is even MORE important now after the last year or so. We will need to take extra care to create social comfort and psychological safety, we will… Read...