Shared Vision: Art and Empathy

This Boys & Girls Clubs of Manatee County exhibition explores how we define, practice, and experience compassion and connection. Empathy, the word derived from the German Einfüling, which translates literally to in-feeling, is a nuanced idea, and this exhibition invites participants to consider their own understandings of it. What does it mean to recognize, share, and feel in the thoughts or experiences of another?

Shared Vision: Art and Empathy is a reflection on the ways art can support empathic feeling and highlights the importance of empathy-building practices and affective learning strategies. Art can be an emotional necessity, a tool for communing with one’s self and others. It can also help us make sense of the complexities of the past and present, offering ways to imagine and adapt toward a different, hopeful and more just world. Shared Vision: Art and Empathy encourages active aesthetic and emotional engagement and considers the ways in which empathy can induce more socially conscious action in our communities.

This is our open invitation to work together to build a stronger, collective culture of support and advocacy based in empathy, inclusion, and social impact. This is a collaborative project that actively embraces individual stories, open dialogue, and the diverse and rich lived experiences of each and every member of our global family.

Acknowledgements

Thank you, so much, for taking the time to get to know us! This journey through our young artists’ personal, visual narratives truly embodies the proverb, “It takes a village.”

Our heartfelt gratitude goes to the Sarasota/Gulf Coast Chapter of the American Sewing Guild, The Floyd C. Johnson and Flo Singer Johnson Foundation, The Ringling, and its extraordinary education department. A super special shout-out to Jackie Pettit, Kat Sjogren, Caitlyn Shanley, Judy Levine, Andy Salgado, and our teachers and community educators for providing capacity and insight to deepen student learning and for their commitment to encouraging creativity.

About The Ringling Community Gallery:

The Ringling Community Gallery is always free and open to the public. The public exhibition space is located on the ground floor of the museum’s Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao Center for Asian Art. Those wishing to visit the exhibition should ask for a Community Gallery wristband at the Visitors Pavilion upon arrival at The Ringling.

The Community Gallery is generously funded by The Community Foundation of Sarasota County.