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Slow Looking Saturday is a museum series taking place during the temporary exhibition ‘Presence of the Past – a Photo Album’. Every first Saturday of the month at 14:30, come and delve into a topic of the exhibition through specific photographs for an hour. A facilitator will accompany you and the group to look at a photograph at a different pace and take the time to reflect on it. Collectively the sessions will cover all the rooms in the exhibition, through the slow looking practice and learning of historical facts based on the group’s observations and reflections.

‘Slow Looking Saturday’ calendar

5 April (International Slow Art Day) – Post-heroic commemorations
Focus on ‘Our Family Garden’ by Smirna Kulenović – an artistic and citizen initiative to heal from the Bosnian War experience through nature.
3 May – Everyday historians
Focus on ‘Moluccan Legacies’ by Elizar Veerman – a photographic project drawing links between four Moluccan generations to reflect about our own family links to the past.
7 June – Hero-making
Focus on ‘Chi ama non dimentica’ by Michaela Cane – a passionate reportage about the cult of the football star Diego Armando Maradona in Naples.
5 July – Destination: History
Focus on ‘Mediterranean. The Continuity of Man’ by Nick Hannes – a look to the - sometimes troubling - tourist behaviours in heritage sites.
2 August – De-commemoration
Focus on ‘Washing Away the Past’ by Ria Pacquée – which traces the cleaning of a monument of Leopold II in Oostende, Belgium, that activists had doused with red paint.
6 September – Re-enactments
Focus on ‘Nostalgia for Mud’ by Hugo Passarello Luna – a contemporary look through a World War One camera at re-enactment events.
4 October
More info coming soon!
1 November
Museum closed, no Slow Looking Saturday taking place.
6 December
More info coming soon!

More about the exhibition topics and activity learning method

The exhibition ‘Presence of the Past’ explores how Europeans engage with the past, history and memories in their everyday lives today. This is through different documentary photographs, grouped in multiple topics to reflect on:

  • commemorations and de-commemorations
  • the difference between the past and history
  • the re-enactment of history or the remainders of the past in the everyday life through monuments, family stories or in the nature

Images surround us every day and we barely spend more than a few seconds looking at them. The aim of Slow Looking Saturday is to focus for a longer time on one of the exhibited photographs per session. A museum guide trained in Visible Thinking Routines facilitates this activity. The Visible Thinking Routines are an observation-based learning method that involves:

  • focusing first on a photograph
  • exploring its meaning and possible interpretations
  • getting to know the perspectives of the photographer or other people represented or impacted by the photograph
  • understanding the many layers of history and meanings related to the photograph
  • learning from the interactions with the photographs, the other participants, the facilitator and the topic.

This method encourages participation in various forms such as writing, drawing, listening or speaking – it will always be up to you to share your personal reflections with the group.

Practical information

  • Meet the guide at 14:30 in the Fables Room, just before the entrance of the temporary exhibition. Please be aware that to enter the museum, you would pass through security checks which can take some time. Please arrive 10 minutes in advance. The activity will be held in English.
  • The activity is suitable for people aged 16 years old and over.