Slow Looking / Close Looking
This January, for just about two weeks, I am taking a course titled “Slow Looking: The Art and Practice of Learning Through Observation” (taught by Dr. Christina Smiraglia and based on the book of the same name written by Project Zero researcher Dr. Shari Tishman (Tishman, 2018). . This book, written in 2018, was recommended to me in the autumn of 2022 by my qualitative methods professor, and I have been eager for time and, admittedly, for accountability in reading it ever since. There are, truly, so many gems within its pages. I won’t list them here, but if you haven’t yet had an opportunity to, I recommend spending a day or two reading it—at the very least it will invite you to think deeply about what it means to think, gather, create, and share knowledge in community. Today was the first day of the class, and we spent the first half of the day getting to know one another and the second half practicing slow looking at the Harvard Museum of Natural History (which, by the way, is super intriguing for a variety of reasons).
One of our assignments for the course is to undertake a slow journalism assignment. In order to get a taste for what this might look like, we were instructed to listen to Paul Salopek on the River of Culture and then to explore a small selection of his writing and/or videography from Out of Eden Walk (his long term project). River of Culture is an audio reflection on the interconnectedness of humanity that sets forth Salopek’s philosophy on what culture is—a dynamic, ever-changing, intriguing, and all-encompassing system of systems. Salopek’s writing and visual explorations—mini digital / visual ethnographic excerpts, really, were immediately intriguing to me. In these I saw echoes of my own past work and future aspirations—he captures these mundanities across the world and weaves them together in ways that invite us into snippets of others’ experiences. People, places, practices and communities are all made visible. Today, I read and watched a few of these. First, I looked at two of his Milestone videos (18 and 19)—short scenes of everyday goings on in various places around the world. Milestone 18 is titled Displacement, and it is this one that I spent the most time with.
Milestone 18: Displacement runs for 1 minute and 7 seconds total. Over the course of this time, viewers enter into the ongoing life of a few individuals and their animals in a refugee camp in Jordan. In the video, a person drags a farming tool across rocky sand in a line on the edge of a tent. We do not see their face, but it is evident that the person is clad in white pants, is wearing socks that leave no skin on either leg or foot visible, and is wearing brown shoes with a silver adornment. Other scenes include clothing swaying ever so gently in a light breeze against a gray sky, a child (a little girl whose brown skin glows warm in the overcast light and whose ponytail bounces as she, smiling, exits the frame), a couple of horses—and a man in a red headscarf who stands near them; a satellite with the letters Open HFD, and the video closes with a close up of what appears to be two buckets of water, a puddle of rain on wet soil, and the clothing still on the cords of the tent.
As I reflect on this, I am reminded of a passage that Salopek writes for another of his posts—one that includes pictures, videos, and written reflections: The Prophet’s Mosque. Of his experience breaking fast during Ramadan in Medina, Salopek reflects:
“There were people from all over the world, hungry, musing quietly inward, waiting. I am not Muslim. But I had been fasting all month as well, out of respect, in order to know.”
Although written as part of a reflection on a slightly different way of capturing / entering into experience, the words “out of respect, in order to know” jump out at me as the central throughline of Salopek’s entire endeavor, and it is this throughline that, I hope, imbues my own day-to-day work.
As I currently understand both Salopek’s endeavor, its accompanying visual work, and Slow Looking is that each is intensely oriented toward knowing. Salopek joins himself to the fast not because he shares a particular belief or way of life with others, but because he shares a humanity with them. Implicit in these words, at least as I read them, is that humans—other humans—are worth knowing of themselves and that their experiences are also worth knowing for themselves. As I enter into 2024, poised to do work with children educators, practitioners, and colleagues, my mission, too, is to enter into space and relationship with sincerity—“out of respect, in order to know.” And, perhaps, in my knowing I will become better able to share with honesty, authenticity, admiration and, yes, even love.
Happy 2024 folks! Excited for more to come this year—and grateful for this space to share.
Warmly,
Ron