Blanton Museum’s Live Demonstration of Slow Ethnography: A Slow Process

I had the opportunity to attend a live demonstration of the artistic technique of slow ethnography in September. As it turns out, slow ethnography is telling of our culture.

One does not usually witness two women standing stock-still having an apparent staring contest upon walking into the Blanton Museum on a Saturday afternoon. But, that’s exactly what confronted unsuspecting visitors last weekend.

London-based artist and anthropologist Zoe Bray held an open art demonstration on Friday through Sunday to publicly depict her artistic, anthropological creative process. She illustrated the practice of slow ethnography, which is the study of the customs of individual peoples and culture as a whole, through the sketching of a live portrait. A roundtable discussion of the techniques and cultural implications of ethnography took place the following Monday. Bray’s purpose in the demonstration was to emphasize the importance of slow, detail-oriented process.

Throughout the weekend, Bray sketched a portrait of UT anthropology professor Kathleen Stewart. Passersby gathered around the demonstration and observed the artist at her work in the Blanton, whispering questions like, “what’s happening?” to each other.

Brooke White, a UT freshman visiting the museum who happened to see the demonstration, said, “I’m not quite sure what’s going on here, but it’s really interesting watching her work.”

Bray continually walked to and from her canvas, inspecting both her sketch and Stewart. Meanwhile, Stewart stared serenely back at Bray, the muse studying the artist. “It’s a slow process of hanging out with people for a long time,” Stewart said as Bray sketched on the canvas. “You put yourself in the situation other people are in.” Bray quipped in response, “Katy is making her own portrait of me.”

Stewart sat relatively still for three hours each day, moving minimally only to answer the questions of curious passerby. “You start to feel like you’re nodding off, and different body parts keep falling asleep” commented Stewart about sitting still for so long. “But we take breaks about every twenty minutes.”

At the roundtable lecture after the demonstration, a panel of anthropologists and ethnographic experts discussed the techniques of slow ethnography and its impact on the public. In the corner of the room, Bray’s finished work remained propped against a wall. Craig Campbell, an Anthropology Professor at UT, organized the panel, which took place in the Glickman Conference Center on Monday evening. The panel featured a number of UT professors and anthropologists.

The panelists ultimately aimed to educate the public on the tedious process of slow ethnography through the live portrait demonstrations.

“Ideally, I would have two weeks to sketch this portrait,” Bray said. “But this is a demonstration of what I would do in the field.” In drawing in front of an audience, Bray hoped to impress upon the audience the importance of the process.

This process takes such a long time because of its detail-oriented nature. Sonia Seeman, an ethnomusicology professor, said that ethnography tells the viewer about a culture through acute attention to detail. “Ethnography is slow, but in an era where the process itself is not valued as much as the product, we want to bring the focus back to the process.”

However, this process is not always exciting, according to Ward Keeler, an anthropology professor. “A synonym for slow ethnography is dull ethnography,” he said. “But, it tells us something.”

Keeler went on to say exactly what that “something” was. “Zoe has caught something truly essential about Katy…an indulgent interest that says, ‘I’m listening.’”

Campbell expanded that his goal in putting together Bray’s demonstration and the slow ethnography panel was to reflect a culture back on its people.

“It’s a tactic for understanding a world that is so much more vast and diverse than we could understand,” he said. The emphasis on slow process and close attention to detail helps to make that diversity more understandable, he added.

Campbell emphasized the importance of making the demonstration public; that way, non-academics could witness the ethnographic process. “We’re clearing a space to think about slow ethnography. Staging an event in which things happen,” he proposed. Fiona McDonald further described the live demonstration as a way of “using the exhibition space as a field space to study.”

During the panel, Bray commented that her intention in sketching the portrait was to give an identity to Stewart through art. She questioned, by looking at the portrait alone, “could you tell who this person is if you didn’t know her?” Bray’s question resonated in the air as the portrait, propped against the wall, stared indulgently at the audience.