Post updated 20/04/2010: The event is over but the memory is fresh! it was a great day, thanks to everyone who participated.
Results and Reflections
More than one person here in Florence has said that Slow Art should be every month, not just an annual event. This would be a lot of work to organize, but it’s something that museum administrators might consider offering in the future. In the meantime we can all practise slow art on our own or with small groups of friends. I certainly found it a useful exercise and I’m pleasantly surprised in the interest that everyone is expressing in slow art. Given this, I plan to write a weekly Slow Art column that addresses just one work in depth. Do you like this idea? Can you contribute? see below… and read on!
Results are coming in from around the world and it seems like everyone had a great time. 31 people signed up for Slow Art Florence, and about half showed up; other cities also experienced some absenteeism. Here, a few people came just for the aperitivo part but contributed a lot to the conversation. All in all, those who did attend were very enthusiastic so we had a great group of people. I particularly want to thank Angie and her husband for coming all the way up from Rome for the occasion!
Everyone loved Brac as a location, and I think being surrounded by books and the aroma of exotic spices helped generate truly intelligent conversation. We got started at 5:45 and the stragglers finally went home at 9pm after talking about the state of digital information in Italy and many other things.
I started out our conversation with a little speech thanking the participants, Phil Terry, and the social media team. Then I asked Cinzia to get us started by talking about growing up in Santa Croce and what the church meant to her, as she was our token “truly Florentine” participant. She talked about Ugo Foscolo’s poem Dei Sepolcri, which was fascinating (despite my botched attempts at translating this into English) and I’m going to expand on that thought in a separate post. This led us to talk more about the comparison between two tombs that I had suggested as one of our things to look at. This was the tombs of Rossini and Bruni; Barbara H. did a good job comparing them by talking about male and female, sacred and profane elements.
Somehow conversation moved on to the topic of what Florentine school children learn about their own art history – I think thanks to a question by Anne P. – so Caterina (@lonelytraveller) and Tommaso (@webtommy) pitched in their experiences on this. Despite having seen Santa Croce many times, all agreed that the experience of looking slowly made for a different, more profound looking.
PHOTO ALBUM!
Twitter #slowart and Live Blogging
It’s turned out to be impossible to live blog my way through an event that I am hosting. I hoped to update this page with some iphone photos and text but I later learned that the wordpress iphone app doesn’t allow you to edit existing posts, bummer! I kept this page open on a computer at Brac and asked participants (many of whom are bloggers) to write their impressions of the experience. See below, some people have already commented!
During the event I tweeted from @TuscanyArt and @Arttrav. My husband @webtommy diligently tweeted his way through the event with photos on twitpic. On twitter, the hashtag is #slowart.
Live Blog “Log”…
April 17, 9am
Today is April 17 2010 – the much anticipated International Slow Art Day. 30 people are signed up for the Florentine event at the Church of Santa Croce. The menu’s confirmed at Brac and I’ve brought art appreciation and other goodies to the aperitif location in preparation for the “big art party”.
Participants have received instructions in italian or english that they are supposed to download and print, along with a special map of Santa Croce to help them find the items I’ve selected for viewing. It’s the list of works and related questions that they need in order to successfully do their looking at art! I fear that many will skip this step so I’m frantically printing extras on my home printer right now. I also provided a google map link to Brac cafe to help people find it.
3:55pm: where is everyone? My husband and I are sitting outside of the church with a hashtag for a sign.
4:10pm: ok, some people have showed up and others will meet us at the aperitivo. Now time to go in and see some art, slowly.
Participants share photos
On Flickr: I have uploaded photos to the Slow Art Florence Flickr set. There is no Flickr group for slowart (yet! maybe next year).
On Facebook: If you’re not a fan of Slow Art yet on facebook, please become one so you can “slow art all year ’round”, not to mention be informed of 2011 slow art day, the date of which is already set (I think it’s April 16 2011, I have to check on that for ya). Phil Terry of Reading Odyssey, the “inventor” of slow art, asks that we upload some photos to the slow art fan page.
Feel free also to post on the TuscanyArts fan page, or to email me your photos (you have my email address thanks to the updates I’ve been sending about the event).
VIDEO! forthcoming… it’s going to take me some time to mount it.
NEED YOUR HELP! if you participated in slow art here or elsewhere I’d love to read your comments on this post.
Second, I’m looking for contributors for the weekly SLOW ART COLUMN on Tuscany Arts. You can look at anything considered “art” (sculpture, architecture, painting, maiolica, jewelry…) in Tuscany for 10 minutes and write about it! Let me know in the comments section if you’re willing to contribute!
