Project Development - Mindful Art Program - Art Institute of Chicago
Project Overview
The mindful art program at the Art Institute of Chicago, Mindfulness Monday and later, Contemplating Contemporary, was part of a thesis project that I conducted during my tenure as an Abraham Lincoln Fellow at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
The core objective of the project was to teach visitors to develop a “looking practice,” which allows them to engage with any work of art, specifically non-representational objects. The method allows accessibility to these works of art regardless of level of education or general art knowledge.
The Looking Practice
Meditate - To develop the steps of the looking practice, research was conducted into existing mindfulness programs, visual thinking strategies, constructivist theory and critical response theory. Research conducted by the museum’s visitor service department was also considered, and revealed a common feeling of overwhelm experienced by patrons. Visitors felt that there was too much to see and not enough time see it. This problem was addressed by beginning the looking practice with a 10 minute meditation, which speaks to this stressor, calms, and prepares the mind for an extended experience with one work of art.
Respond - The group is asked for their first impression of the work of art, allowing for objective and subjective responses.
Look - According to the Getty Museum, visitors spend an average of thirty seconds looking at a work of art. With this in mind participants are given four times this amount, two minutes, to sit silently and contemplate the object.
Describe - When the time is up, visitors are asked to describe the work of art as if they were talking to someone on the phone that cannot see it. This yields an in-depth formal analysis, discussing dimensions, elements, and principles of the artwork.
Wonder - After the analysis, and a summary of these observations, the participants are allowed to wonder and ask questions about the work with regard to what intrigues or puzzles.
Connect - Next, the participants are given five minutes to look around the gallery space, with a critical eye, to draw connections between the work under consideration and others in the same space. The group identifies visual threads, which run through each piece, and dates are examined to establish a chronology.
Reflect - The group provides questions and comments, to synthesize all of the information they have gathered thus far, and draws their own conclusions about the work of art. The facilitator intersperses art historical information about the piece to support discussion.
Conclude - Any outstanding questions for the piece are addressed, the group is reminded of the positive impact of slowing down to look at art, and how this experience can be employed whenever they visit the museum on their own.
Project Logistics
After weeks of compiling research on museum teaching methods, educational philosophy, mindfulness and engaging in my own meditation practice within the confines of the galleries, I wrote a lesson plan for the looking practice. The lesson plan sought to organize the research into a series of steps and scripts that would help me to inform and engage participants fully. The plan was submitted to the museum’s education department, museum educators participated in a mock session, and provided feedback. Once the program was approved by the education department, it took two months of working with visitor services, security, social media, photography, and public relations before the initial session could commence.
Evolution
The Mindfulness Monday program was very successful, with an average of twenty eight attendees per bi-monthly session. After graduation, I was offered the Woman’s Board Fellowship from the Art Institute of Chicago, which allowed the project to continue. At that time, the contemporary galleries had been re-installed, and to highlight these works the program name was changed to Contemplating Contemporary. For almost two years, the program considered over forty works of art from the contemporary collection.
