Finding Spaces to be Still: Promoting Mindful Museums with Louise Thompson

By Daniella Angulo

Louise Thompson is on a mission. In the age of technology, it’s often said that we’re losing the ability to be in the present moment. Louise combats this risk by making opportunities for stillness using art.
Having spent 12 years as Health and Wellbeing Manager at Manchester Art Gallery, Louise is ushering in a new era of mindfulness in museums to teach visitors how to be in the present moment. Using a mindfulness-based approach and trauma-informed practices, her work pushes galleries to foster more meaningful engagement with art and encourage visitors to have healthier relationships with themselves. As a museum consultant, Louise now works in the UK and abroad to center mental health in museums’ practices and promote inclusivity in the arts and culture industry.

I recently had the chance to chat with Louise and visit Manchester Art Gallery’s Room to Breathe, a product of her efforts that encourages visitors to sit, relax and just be with a painting. Complete with sofas and dim lighting for relaxation, it attracts anyone looking for a different kind of interaction with art. When I first entered, a group of mothers and babies were inside, taking advantage of the space’s calm for a play group. When I tried going again, a school group was inside, sprawled over the couches and jostling to scan the mindfulness audio guides. On my third try, it was finally just me and a few other visitors. The space is for everyone, and it’s well-used by the community. In it, I got to sit and reflect, appreciating how many others had come and gone before me—and, more than anything, appreciating having space to breathe.

Thank you to Louise for taking the time for this interview!

To start off, what do you define as mindfulness? Why have you chosen museums as places to practice it?

I define mindfulness as a present-moment awareness that uses our senses to come into the here and now. Through it, you’re aware of your thoughts, feelings and surroundings, while bringing kindness and curiosity to that awareness. Museums are full of interesting sensory objects, making them the perfect place for people to learn this skill.

In mindfulness courses, one of the first activities usually involves a raisin: looking, smelling, squeezing, feeling and eventually eating it. This demonstrates how we can use our senses to bring our full attention to something, which brings us into the present moment.

Personally, I’m not always in favor of this as an introductory exercise. Staring at a raisin can make people feel self-conscious! So instead, why not try it with a work of art?

*A picture from my visit to ‘Room to Breathe.’*

How did you come to this work?

At Manchester Art Gallery, I did a project creating art with adults accessing mental health services through the UK's National Health Service. The mental health professionals we collaborated with suggested integrating mindfulness into our activities. I didn’t know what it was, but the neuroscience behind what mindfulness does in the body and brain blew me away. When I started practicing it, I saw firsthand how much of a difference it made to my own mental health.

I became determined to integrate this practice into what we did at the gallery. In mindfulness, we use something as an anchor for our attention. It can be something internal, like your own breath, or something exterior to you, which extends so naturally to art. Mindfulness is all about the senses—and so are museums!

We discovered that teaching mindfulness using art has two benefits. Visitors learn a personal wellbeing skill and it creates deeper connections to the art itself. They spend more time with pieces, look at them more intensely and have a more profound experience with it.

*A community group selecting paintings to be featured in ‘And Breathe.’ Credit:* *Manchester City Council*

We began with a monthly workshop where we invited people to sit and take notice of different pieces around the gallery. We then became interested in using mindfulness as a specific approach to curation. In imagining this, we realized a mindfulness-based exhibition wouldn’t be about analytical thinking, but just about looking.

Our first iteration of a mindfully-created gallery space was called And Breathe, which opened in 2018. We worked with a group of mental health service users to select which paintings would go on display. We practiced mindful looking with different pieces from the museum’s collection, noticing colours, lines, shapes and patterns.

We chose to display the pieces that evoked the richest conversations. In the gallery’s design, we hung all the art lower to encourage people to sit. We made QR codes available for guided mindfulness practices. We had no labels beside the art and only had ten pieces on display. The public’s feedback was very positive, which led us to the current Room to Breathe. Here, we only show two or three pieces at a time.

*‘And Breathe’ was on display at the Manchester Art Gallery from 2018-2020. Credit:* *Manchester Art Gallery*

*Over the years, ‘Room to Breathe’ has displayed two portraits, two landscapes and three still lifes. Credit:* *Manchester Art Gallery*

When we first met, you’d just come out of presenting new research on Room to Breathe. Can you share what this was?
We partnered with the Department of Psychology at the University of London’s Goldsmiths College to understand the impact of Room to Breathe’s mindful design. You can see the effects it has on visitors, but we needed scientific evidence.

In the study, we questioned: Is there any difference in viewing art in a space like this compared to a typical exhibition? If so, what is it? We collected visitor data on their responses to the same portrait in Room to Breathe versus a traditional busy gallery space with brighter lights, higher ceilings, lots of artworks on display and no seating.

We discovered that in Room to Breathe, people showed much higher feelings of valiance, or pleasant feelings. They were more relaxed and showed increased engagement. They felt they paid attention for longer and had much stronger connections with the piece.

To have these effects confirmed is hugely exciting. It shows other galleries and museums that, if they could replicate this, they would be able to improve the wellbeing of the communities they work with. They’d also be increasing their engagement and appreciation of the art itself. We knew these things before, but now the evidence proves it!

*Edward Hartley Mooney’s 1918 “Still Life” is currently on display in ‘Room to Breathe.’ Credit:* *Manchester Art Gallery*

You’ve recently left your position at Manchester Art Gallery to become a full-time museum consultant. What do you do in this new role?

As a consultant in the UK and abroad, I work on trauma-informed practice in museum contexts and deliver trainings on what mindfulness is, why it’s good for our mental health and how museums can use it to create mindful spaces and practices within their work and organizations. My work helps museums and galleries understand why culture is so good for people's health and wellbeing; why art, creativity, heritage and culture can help people live longer, healthier and happier lives.

I’ve recently started “The Mindful Museum” campaign, which has three main parts. These include raising awareness of art’s health benefits and using mindfulness as a way to engage with collections and support visitor wellbeing. What brings it all together is promoting the rights of working people to access arts and culture. This field has historically been elitist, but mindfulness provides a democratic way for everyone to engage with art.

To practice mindfulness with art, you don’t have to have any specialist experience or knowledge about it. Everyone can notice different things about a painting. Instead of talking about art history, we’ll have a chat about that. What it was like to sit in front of this piece for so long? What did it make you feel? It’s about your experience with the artwork—not what the curator, museum director, or even what the artist says. Instead, it’s: what do you think? Once you give people that message, those barriers come down.

Mindful engagement with art shows people that everyone can do it. It’s accessible and it’s enjoyable. Come in, and just….look at it!

Louise is creating a cultural shift that redefines how we engage with art, museums, and ourselves. A mindful approach to museums helps us regain our lost attention and encourages us to get back in touch with ourselves through art. This creative approach to mental health and making art more accessible is something we can get behind! To keep up with Louise and learn more about her work, check out her website or follow her on Instagram.