{"id":90800,"date":"2025-02-27T08:09:34","date_gmt":"2025-02-27T15:09:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=90800"},"modified":"2025-03-07T05:59:12","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T12:59:12","slug":"emily-larsen-on-the-power-of-art-to-connect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/emily-larsen-on-the-power-of-art-to-connect\/","title":{"rendered":"Emily Larsen on the Power of Art to Connect and Heal"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sister Emily Larsen beneath the Ishtar Gates at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, 2012.<\/p><\/div>\n

For Springville Museum of Art director Emily Larsen<\/a> creating exhibitions is about forging connections between people and the larger human experience. It’s a philosophy rooted in a life-changing moment at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.<\/span><\/h4>\n

As an LDS-missionary facing a mental health crisis, Larsen made the difficult decision to return home early for professional treatment. In her final days in Berlin, her Mission President granted her permission to visit any museums she had yet to explore. She went to the Pergamon Museum to visit the Ishtar Gate, the iconic lapis lazuli gateway that once stood in Babylon reconstructed in the museum. \u201cI remember walking under the Gate, looking up, and thinking about the thousands\u2014or even millions\u2014of people who had passed beneath it throughout human history,\u201d she recalls. \u201cIt made me feel small in the best way possible.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cSuddenly, I felt a hope I hadn\u2019t experienced in months\u2014a connection to a larger human experience,\u201d she explains. \u201cEven though I felt incredibly hopeless and unsure of what was coming next, I knew it was going to be OK.\u201d The weight of history and the shared experience of those who had walked beneath the gate before her provided reassurance that life, even in its most difficult moments, moves forward.<\/h4>\n

That experience solidified Larsen\u2019s belief in the power of art to heal and transform. \u201cIt has influenced my curatorial vision and choices in countless ways,\u201d she says. \u201cThe goal of every exhibition at Springville Museum of Art [where Larsen has been the Executive Director since 2023]\u2014and in every art exhibition I curate or participate in\u2014is to make people feel connected to something bigger than themselves, to a larger shared humanity. … Art has a healing, transformative power. My hope is that every exhibition I work on carries forward that sense of connection and possibility.\u201d<\/h4>\n

A powerful example of this philosophy in action is the 53rd Annual Utah All-State High School Art Show<\/em><\/a>, on display at the museum through March 21. \u201cThe works of the high school artists are some of the most honest and vulnerable we show all year,\u201d Larsen says. \u201cThey completely epitomize the idea that art can connect you to a larger shared human experience.\u201d<\/h4>\n

The exhibition features pieces that explore joy, heartbreak, doubt, confidence, and a full spectrum of human emotions, distilled into powerful artistic statements by Utah\u2019s best student artists. \u201cA friend who visited recently said it was the first thing she had seen in months that gave her hope for the future,\u201d Larsen says. This reaffirmed her belief that art can bridge divides, provide solace, and offer hope.<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
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A patron examines a work at the 53rd Annual Utah All-State High School Art Show at the Springville Museum of Art. Courtesy of the Springville Museum of Art.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For Springville Museum of Art director Emily Larsen creating exhibitions is about forging connections between people and the larger human experience. It’s a philosophy rooted in a life-changing moment at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. As an LDS-missionary facing a mental health crisis, Larsen made the difficult decision […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1600,"featured_media":90819,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,2238],"tags":[3067,107],"class_list":["post-90800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-visual_arts","category-who-do-you-love","tag-emily-larsen","tag-springville-museum-of-art"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Kirchejesuchristi-182-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-04 16:38:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1600"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90800"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90961,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90800\/revisions\/90961"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}