Marina is available to speak about playing with new ways of paying attention.

Her speaking engagements explore how looking at ordinary life with the same embodied gaze we use with art in a museum can open us up to wonder, compassion, and empowerment.

Ignite Talk: Stories of the Firelight

Museum Computer Network (MCN) Conference in Lawrence, Kansas (2024). This Ignite Talk explored the potential of museums to be experiential laboratories for their communities to practice feeling their feelings with curiosity and compassion. Through a blend of storytelling and scholarship, museum technology professionals were invited to imagine facilitating experiences that welcomed visitors to explore the sensations and wisdom of their emotional bodies.

A painting of a splash in a pool over the words: "The art of beginnings: a workshop about playing with thresholds"

Workshop: The Art of Beginnings

The Art of Beginnings (2024). This online workshop explored the anatomy and sensuality of threshold experiences. Through a series of reflections and creative exercises inspired by museum lobbies, participants played with new ways of paying attention to the disorientation and potentials found in the liminal space of beginning something new.

Workshop: Learning to See

Looking at Life like Art: Learning to See with Marina Gross-Hoy (2023). This workshop, held in Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania’s Collegium Institute, introduced participants to the ‘museum gaze’ and guided them through a practicum in seeing. Undergraduate and graduate students, as well as faculty and community members, were invited to play with new ways of paying attention, and to open themselves more fully to their environment through slow looking.

Podcast Interview: The Museum Gaze

The Art Engager Podcast: Looking at life like a work of art (2022). In this episode, Marina shares the main characteristics of 'the museum gaze' and how it works in practice. Host Claire Bown and Marina discuss how observing life with the same gaze we use with art in a museum works in practice and the numerous benefits we can glean from a regular practice of looking at life in this way.

Panel Discussion: The Art We Live With

The Art We Live With: Seeking, Prioritizing, and Cultivating Beauty in the Everyday (2022). This online panel discussion, organized by the Collegium Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, explored the need to prioritize, make, and seek beauty in our everyday lives. Watch the recording of this virtual event (Marina starts at 26:09).

Panel Moderation: Museum Voices

Museum Voices International Conference in Rome, Italy (2024). Under the frescoed ceilings of the Palazzo Barberini, Marina co-moderated a panel of international museum professionals discussing the theme of Museums, Audiences, and Sustainable Development. The session was part of the two-day conference that concluded the 2023-24 season of New Perspectives in Approaching Audiences, an international museum research seminar series organized by the Research Center of the École du Louvre, the Groupe de recherche sur l’éducation et les musées (GREM) at the Université du Québec à Montréal, and Sapienza Università di Roma.

Workshop: Forest Contemplation

Forest Contemplation (2022). This outdoor workshop guided young adult participant through a contemplative practice that encouraged deep looking, both inward and outward, guided by the questions: What do I need, right now? Where can I find it, right here?