{"id":323887,"date":"2026-06-29T22:19:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T22:19:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/323887\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T22:19:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T22:19:20","slug":"big-arts-and-florida-southwestern-state-college-team-up-for-exhibition-about-boredom-wgcu-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/323887\/","title":{"rendered":"BIG ARTS and Florida SouthWestern State College team up for exhibition about boredom | WGCU News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Each year, BIG ARTS collaborates with the Florida SouthWestern State College School of the Arts to put on an exhibition in the Dunham Family Gallery. The theme for this year\u2019s show is boredom.<\/p>\n

Implicit in the concept of boredom is a desire to escape into a more interesting, engaged state of mind. In other words, it\u2019s a prerequisite for meaningful change. And it lies at the heart of an exhibition of paintings, mixed media, digital artworks and sculpture created by Florida SouthWestern State College students for the BIG ARTS show. Marketing Director Meghan Govoni provides the big picture.<\/p>\n

\"'Type<\/p>\n

WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n

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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n

‘Type Casted,’ by student artist Anthony Norton. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe exhibit is special because the singular theme, boredom, was the focus for a group of students throughout an extended period during their current academic year and it was the prompt for their annual arts competition called Art 24,\u201d said Govoni.<\/p>\n

Art24 is an interdisciplinary art contest in which groups of students have just 24 hours to work together to create collaborative artworks based on a given prompt.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe winning piece, a short film by a quartet of high school students, that’s actually in the exhibit,\u201d Govoni said.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n

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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall<\/p>\n

The winning piece in the Art24 interdisciplinary art contest was a short film created by a quartet of high school students.<\/p>\n

The BIG ARTS collaboration gave exhibiting students more than just exposure. They also got to hang the show themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe students brought the work in and hung it themselves,\u201d Govoni noted. \u201cIt was a big part of the process for them to see how it was to set up an exhibit on their own in a professional gallery. They got to work together and had to collaborate to figure out what went where on the floor, what went where on the walls,\u201d Govoni noted. \u201cIt was really fun to watch them bring it all together. It was a great experience for them and why we love this partnership with them so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing boring about \u201cBoredom.\u201d It\u2019s on view at BIG ARTS through July 23.<\/p>\n

\"'Boredom'<\/p>\n

WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n

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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n

‘Boredom’ is on view inside the Dunham Family Gallery at BIG ARTS through July 23. <\/p>\n

MORE INFORMATION:<\/p>\n

The theme of boredom has been a thread running through several courses taught at Florida Southwestern State College (FSW), including English creative writing courses taught by Professor Lynn Embick. <\/p>\n

It was also the prompt for ART24 and the call to artists for the BIG ARTS exhibition.<\/p>\n

That prompt read as follows:<\/p>\n

\u201cUnlike some of its synonyms, like ennui, apathy or tedium, boredom implies a resolve, positive or negative. In being bored, there is a will to escape being bored. Boredom happens when actions, situations or outlooks don\u2019t provide any meaning, challenge or interest. The escape is to challenge oneself to enable meaningful change. Change the parameters of the game to change the outcome. To make change then is to invoke boredom, as a prerequisite for change.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"'Boredom'<\/p>\n

WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n

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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n

‘Boredom’ is on view inside the Dunham Family Gallery at BIG ARTS through July 23. <\/p>\n

The student artists<\/p>\n

The artists with work in \u201cBoredom\u201d include:<\/p>\n

Lidia AgostinelliSchuyler Kessler AndersonFaith ArsenaultJayden BecerraJaun Cotes-MarquezJuliana DominquezWilliam Garcia Jr.Anabella LorenzoAnthony NortonOri Fernandez RestrepoSadye SandiferRhea SchottRobert SchottAmelia TadinEthan Winters<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n

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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n

The artworks in ‘Boredom’ cover a range of disciplines from painting and sculpture to digital art and film.<\/p>\n

The exhibition is provocative. The artworks varied. Some correspond directly to the theme of boredom, such as Anabella Lorenzo\u2019s sculpture \u201cPatience\u201d and Schuyler Kessler Anderson\u2019s \u201cBored to Death.\u201d In others, the connection is more abstruse, exploring instead the preconditions for escaping the doldrums of psychological stasis or a creative block.<\/p>\n

Several examples follow, but they are by no means exclusive. As is true of any art exhibition, viewers can make a cursory examination of the works in the show or spend hours mining the compositions for meaning and connection. To paraphrase the Beatles, in the end, what you take is equal to what you bring to the exhibit.<\/p>\n

\"Mixed<\/p>\n

WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n

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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n

Mixed media work by student artist Alexa Bastys Lytton<\/p>\n

Alexa Bastys Lytton<\/p>\n

The central focus of Lytton\u2019s painting is a man reading a newspaper. He\u2019s surrounded by images from the fleeting stories he\u2019s reading from people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cI filled the canvas with contradictions; playing with perspective, size, proportion, different textures and exaggeration,\u201d states Lytton in his artist statement for the piece. \u201cThe right side of the canvas is a bird\u2019s-eye perspective of a board game, following the dual themes of \u2018bored\u2019 and \u2018chance.\u2019 The back of the newspaper stayed empty until the end. Not setting on any specific content or joke, I glued some random pages from a vintage magazine to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this sense, the composition is a exploration of the mundane parts of life, namely, those that are most inclined to lead to boredom and which can serve as a catalyst for creativity if approached with a positive mental attitude.<\/p>\n

\"Student<\/p>\n

WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n

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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n

Student artist Sadye Sandifer chose the mourning bride flower for her artwork in ‘Boredom.’<\/p>\n

Sadye Sandifer \u2018Besotted\u2019<\/p>\n

Sandifer intended her work in \u201cBoredom\u201d to encapsulate the concept of \u201cHanahaki Disease.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c[It\u2019s] a mythical Japanese illness that is depicted as the victim experiencing a growth of flowers within the lungs whilst facing the conflict of an unrequited love,\u201d she wrote in her artist\u2019s statement for the exhibition. \u201cThe term being broken down into \u2018hana\u2019 meaning flower and \u2018hakimasu\u2019 meaning to throw up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her review of several Victorian flower language books led her to choose the \u201cmourning bride\u201d because it signifies \u201can unfortunate attachment.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this context, Sandifer equates boredom to stasis. One suffering unrequited love is stuck psychologically, unable to move forward.<\/p>\n

\u201c[W]hat may feel like suffocation from loss or unreciprocated feelings is just that, a feeling, not a reality,\u201d said Sandifer in her artist statement. \u201cAre they real or something to make you fell better about the pain you feel internally? Something you can use to explain why it all hurts so deeply. Or the opposing viewpoint being that these flowers are SO real that they have sprung color into a grey reality?”<\/p>\n

In the phraseology of the prompt for the exhibition, one besotted by unrequited love must \u201cchange the parameters of the game to change the outcome\u201d and move forward to form new and truly meaningful and bilateral relationships.<\/p>\n

\"'Snooze<\/p>\n

WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n

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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n

‘Snooze Fest,’ by Ethan Winters.<\/p>\n

Ethan Winters \u2018Snooze Fest\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cSnooze Fest\u201d is a semi-autobiographical painting by Ethan Winters. It depicts the artist bored and nearly asleep at a desk apparently thinking about anything but classwork.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I think of boredom, I think of being in high school,\u201d Winters wrote in his artist statement accompanying the painting. \u201cI was always bored after finishing my work, so I usually used my extra time to sleep or think about anything and everything else \u2013 [such as] the lyrics and music of some song, my work schedule, a text from a co-worker.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the process of pondering and painting the topic caused a shift in Winters\u2019 understanding of the term from \u201cthinking of whatever\u201d to \u201cwaiting for time to pass.\u201d<\/p>\n

Support for WGCU\u2019s arts & culture reporting comes from the Estate of Myra Janco Daniels, the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation, and Naomi Bloom in loving memory of her husband, Ron Wallace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Each year, BIG ARTS collaborates with the Florida SouthWestern State College School of the Arts to put on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-323887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}