What are you paying attention to? That's the question at the heart of today's episode which, fittingly, includes a lot of questions. My thought-partner in this conversation is Marina Gross-Hoy, PhD, a storyteller and Museum Studies scholar whose work invites people to cultivate new relationships with the experience of being alive.
Highlights
How studying abroad in Italy sparked Marina's love of art history and launched a personal and professional inquiry into paying attention
Ways slow looking (spending longer with something than you usually would) shifts us from "I know what this is" to "I don't know everything," revealing what you didn't see before
Understanding how art historians approach visual analysis, and how we can bring those techniques to our daily life
Attention not as something to "add on" (because we're already doing it!) but to notice where you're directing it
The necessity of micro-moments of awe in daily life to receive care, connect us to something larger, and soften rigid thinking
Noticing as a tool to support your mental health on hard days, reclaiming meaning, and rewriting the stories of our your own life
How practicing attention can give tangible form to something intangible, and that can be a whole experience
Attention redistributes authority by finding your own interpretation rather than looking a way a curator thinks you should
The subversive act of letting something be without rushing to fix it or share it—and what shifts in us when we slow down enough to truly be present and resist the urge to immediately share something online
3 invitations to practice noticing
Links & Mentions
The Museum Gaze (Substack newsletter)
A guide to slow looking from the Tate museum
Jessi Rado's The Museum of Healing Attention
Cezane's Still Life with Apples and Peaches
Meet Marina
Marina Gross-Hoy, PhD, is a storyteller and Museum Studies scholar whose work invites people to cultivate new relationships with the experience of being alive. She is the founder of the Laboratoire d’attentions, a research-creation initiative centered on experimenting with alternative approaches to inhabiting and understanding attention. Her newsletter, The Museum Gaze, explores what looking at artwork can teach us about seeing the art of our ordinary lives. Originally from Michigan, Marina holds degrees in muséologie from the École du Louvre (MA) and the Université du Québec à Montréal (PhD). She takes playing in museums very seriously.
Connect
✨ Seasonal shifts offer a gentle invitation to pause, pay attention, and make space for what comes next. THRESHOLDS is the guided reflection ritual I've returned to for years, now gathered into a workbook I'd love to share with you. Download your copy here.
