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Boys & Girls Club of Manatee County partnering with Art Center Sarasota for new exhibit

By FOX 13 News Staff
Published  September 24, 2024 9:49am EDT
Sarasota
FOX 13 News

Art exhibit by Boys & Girls Club of Manatee County

Photojournalist Barry Wong reports

SARASOTA, Fla. - "Our Starlight by The Unaligned Stars" at Art Center Sarasota hopes to shine a light on the inner thoughts and emotions facing underrepresented teenagers.

The unaligned stars are a group of eight teenagers from the Boys & Girls Club of Manatee County. They partnered with the center for a six-week community-impact program, creating 28 pieces of art for the self-named exhibit.

"I hope the kids get out of this whole entire experience is that they find the outlet to express these emotions and not feel like they're alone, that there are other people like them," Boys & Girls of Manatee County Fine Arts Program Specialist Annie Dong said.

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Some of the pieces focus on deep topics like body image, peer pressure and foster families. The teens were initially inspired by an Art Center Sarasota regional show titled "Beyond Comfort," which according to curator Christina Baril, highlighted aspects of beauty and/or the grotesque.

"They drew inspiration from that and then their backgrounds," Dong said. "A lot of them just started like talking about their story, about where they come from, and they were all able to bond together."

Baril is particularly moved by the books that they created, saying that they reflect the mindset of the teens.

"They found in each other an outlet where they could express their emotions, their fears, their traumas," Baril said. "Just seeing the amount of creativity and the amount of emotion they have in the work is really beautiful."

Both Baril and Dong hope the exhibit fosters empathy from visitors and highlights the need to art accessibility.

"It screams how important, even those kids that never see art or think they will ever do art or no interest in it, you just somewhat still try to give them that opportunity," Dong said. "We need more assessable workshops or art classes and stuff like this for community members, like young ones to be able to have like an outlet to express themselves."

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