Designblog

Our modern world is dominated by speed, we’re addicted to it. We try to squeeze in as much as possible in every minute of every day. All the mintues of the day are a race against the clock. The last 150 years everything seems to get faster, our world had turned into a race of the fastest, not the fittest. Quantity has become more significant than quality.
It’s time for a new approach on the time and the experience of it. Following this philosphy a cultural revolution has begun against the notion that faster is always better. It’s not about doing everything in a snail pace, but about doing things in the right speed. With the right speed you become more aware of the world around you.
Slow movement is also a strategy artists use to explore a new world, parallel to the real one. By examining and exploring the decelerated movement, you experience a completely new place that tells a totally different story then the movement would in a regular pace. The quick movement easily misses the essence of the being. New interpretations and other information occur by applying a slow movement strategy.
Art wants to be looked at closer and deeper, and not to function as a spectacle for the consumer. By engaging more with the work, you get introduced in the inside world, which is not visible in the beginning. It’s like reading a book, as the ‘halves of it’, instead of looking at the cover, the ‘whole’.



The Kunsthalle of Bern shows an exhibition of artworks focussed on the slow movement.. Reading about the slow movement and looking at the works made me rethink about looking at art. I’m not a person who takes the time to look at art more closely. I judge by the cover, the ‘whole’ of what I see.
Last christmas I visited Paris and went to Centre Pompidou. Mindlessly I passed the diffrent works, without truly engaging. After a while I realised I had no clue what I had seen. Then I forced myself to take a closer look and a stronger connection occured to me. Your experience a higher level of commitment, when you let yourself get absorbed into the work. Most people do not reach this level, because they crossmark the artworks they saw and feel satisfied by saying “I’ve seen a real….”. Again; it’s not about quality, but about quantity.
The quest for understanding works hand in hand with a process of decelaration. There are no routine practices that could be used to save time. Why hurry through art and miss it’s essence? An artwork was build out of energy, emotions and time and it deserves to be experienced with the same care.
“Slow Movement or: Half and Whole” means life before art and life after art.

by Bregje Sliepenbeek: download as pdf