“What I think is looking often isn’t looking at all. It’s a kind of gazing,” reflects Olivia Laing on the act of viewing art¹. The author and cultural critic has written extensively about art and artists, yet even they admit to a cursory way of moving through galleries: “I’ll kind of scan through a gallery, and I’ve hardly taken anything in.” It is an experience of exhibition-going I recognise in myself.

Research cited by Tate suggests that gallery visitors spend, on average, about eight seconds with each work². Such a figure hints at a hurried mode of cultural consumption: the visit accomplished, the exhibition “seen,” the proof captured. It points to a desire to be in proximity to art, yet an uncertainty about how to engage with it.

I think of the city as a gallery—a vast and continuous exhibition. The artworks are everywhere: in façades and street furniture, in infrastructure and ornament, in the improvisations that emerge where people encounter the built world and one another. Compositions arrange and rearrange wherever you look. By this logic, daily life exists within a field of art; the question is whether we notice any of it.

Visitors to galleries arrive with the intention to see, look, view—the verbs that define the exhibition experience. Yet Tate’s data shows how briefly we sustain that intention. Travel, meanwhile, is guided by different imperatives: discover, dine, shop. The time spent with any given detail of a city likely falls short of even the eight seconds afforded to art. More often, visitors pass swiftly through their surroundings, taking in whatever surface information is available before progressing to the next point of attraction.

As a counterbalance, museum education programmes helped formalise the concept of slow looking. Shari Tishman, author of a book of the same name³, defines it as “taking the time to carefully observe more than meets the eye at first glance.” Many galleries now promote this approach, encouraging us to stay with a single piece rather than skipping from one work to the next. Institutions such as Tate and MoMA, as well as smaller independent spaces, have outlined their own versions. The guidance is usually simple: choose one artwork, give it more time than feels natural—five to ten minutes on a timer, perhaps—and look closely, ask questions, and allow a personal response to emerge.

These steps seek to give form to what is essentially mental work—looking, noticing, making sense. At first, it can be difficult to tell whether we are truly doing anything at all. As Olivia Laing asks, are we looking or merely gazing? Laing, as a writer, identifies a crucial connection: “When I try to resolve it into language, I realise my looking was imperfect. I need to go back and write down what I’m seeing as I’m seeing it.” Only with a pencil in hand, they suggest, does the full texture of observation begin to emerge. In this light, note-taking offers slow looking the tangible anchor it needs.

I’m in favour of slow looking as it applies to urban environments. When I walk through Tokyo, I pause often to take notes—to stay with the comings and goings at a street corner a little longer, to give a weathered façade more than a passing glance, to question the role of a small shrine set into an alleyway. In doing so, the experience shifts from moving through space to understanding it. Slow looking gives these pauses both a name and a practice. In Tokyotheque Neighbourhoods Vol. 1, routes will include designated stops and map points for this kind of attention.

The principle unsettles the usual travel programme—tourism prizes coverage; slow looking asks for comprehension. In the gallery, the trade is obvious: slow looking in exchange for the chance to see everything. Intellectually, I know this to be the richer path, yet I’m still the sort who longs for completion. Indeed, I want to see every artwork and, in the city, every street.

But slow looking at every corner would mean hardly moving at all. When we have the luxury of spending several days in one district—or of returning repeatedly—comprehension and coverage can coexist. Yet within the compressed timelines that define most travel, some measure of fast looking is unavoidable. Tishman acknowledges the tension:

Usually fast looking serves us pretty well. It would be absurdly inconvenient to have to look at things over and over again in order to recognise them. Intuitive, visual sense-making is necessary in order to move through the world efficiently.

What I hope to cultivate in the pages of Tokyothèque Neighbourhoods is a middle way: to move broadly at the pace of intuitive sense-making, and know when to pause. Study a few select details with care and the essence of the place begins to show itself. One corner observed closely tells how a neighbourhood came to be; one sign discloses a culturally coded visual language; one brief exchange hints at the city’s wider social habits.

We can grasp the outline by looking quickly, but the city, like the gallery, rewards those who give it time. The task is to choose our moments wisely—spending attention where it matters without losing momentum.

Until we meet in measured observation,

AJ

Tokyothèque Neighbourhoods

Now open for pre-order, the first volume of Tokyothèque Neighbourhoods, applies the principles of slow looking to the city itself. Each route balances wide exploration with a series of intentional pauses—places where a closer look reveals how Tokyo works. It’s a way of traveling that values attention over haste, and understanding over accumulation.

A Note on Monographs

October’s Monograph edition is running a little late as I’ve just come back from a concentrated stretch in Tokyo, deep in field work. It’s one of the realities of a publication made by hand and on a small scale.

Nevertheless, the next Monograph is taking shape here at home in London. These essays are our most deeply researched, members-only pieces, and the forthcoming edition is by a guest whose perspective I’m certain you’ll appreciate.

Members will receive it as soon as it’s ready. If you’d like to read it—while supporting independent cultural publishing—becoming a member is how. Discounts on books, along with a few other useful things, are included.

Thank you for your patience — and for being here.

(Or: start a free trial)

Links

¹ Olivia Laing on Time Sensitive
² Tate's Guide to Slow Looking
³ Slow Looking by Shari Tishman