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I’ve been thinking a lot this week about the practice of looking closely at things. It started when one of my readers sent me some wonderful writing and drawings that her boys had done in response to an exhibition in London that I reviewed a few weeks ago.
With a brief to write what they thought about the artworks, my young friends spent over an hour deeply engrossed in looking closely at them. The critical thinking and stretching of imagination evident in both boys’ observations made me think once again about how valuable art is for children’s learning. The benefits spill over in every direction, not only in the process of making art but also in thinking about it. Kids learn to identify patterns and structures, think about scale and perspective, describe and question, imagine and analyse. Then there’s the social and emotional learning that goes on.
The practice of looking closely, of slow contemplation, is the opposite of what is going on for the majority of children nowadays, according to the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, whose new book The Anxious Generation explores what he calls the ‘Great Re-Wiring of Childhood’. One of the compelling arguments he makes is about how current levels of smartphone usage are likely to have a detrimental impact on the development of young brains.
In this week’s episode I talk about all of this, and I discuss the work of two British artists, Tiffany Arntson and Rackstraw Downes, whose practice is all about looking closely.
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The Gallery Companion is hosted by writer and historian Dr Victoria Powell. It's a thought-provoking dive into the interesting questions and messy stuff about our lives that art explores and represents.
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