Abstracted and Love the Everglades Movement Exhibits

The Art and Culture Center of Hollywood has Two Contemporary Summer Exhibitions: Abstracted and Love the Everglades Movement

The Center’s exhibition this summer, Abstracted, looks at the work of three multi-media artists: Francie Bishop Good, Karen Snouffer, and Sara Stites. These three artists all create vibrant paintings and sculptures to communicate open-ended ideas and themes while appreciating the physicality of artmaking. The exhibition presents each artist’s unique perspective while opening a collective conversation. The exhibition includes a look at abstraction through a historical lens including Abstract Expressionism, Orphism, Lyrical Abstraction, and Japanese Nihonga. Abstracted will be on view from Saturday, June 3 through Sunday, August 6, 2023

Also exhibiting this summer is Love the Everglades Movement. Love the Everglades Movement is an environmental nonprofit established over 10 years ago by Reverend Houston R. Cypress and Jean Sarmiento. The exhibition at the Center will create a space for learning, engagement, and joy in relationship to the River of Grass.

“I don’t know what it is about the River of Grass, but when you’re out there, conversations inevitably turn to healing and medicine. Water is sacred, and water unites us.” – Love The Everglades Movement

This exhibition is the sixth of our Oolite Collaborations series with Oolite Arts based in Miami Beach. The exhibition brochure includes an interview of the artists by environmental activist and independent art historian Mary Jo Aagerstoun.

Love the Everglades Movement encourages education and action on the preservation of the Everglades and looks to Reconciliation as an integral aspect of the Greater Everglades restoration project because of its necessity to integrate indigenous knowledge into the overall process. The information is manifold as it relates to traditional ecological knowledge (such as researching and reintroducing native plants into our ecosystem), the arts (how culture and craft can amplify storytelling), and understanding how language and dialect are inherent to our environmental surroundings.

Visitors of all ages are invited to participate in numerous activities to deeply explore the themes present throughout the galleries. All summer long, visitors can create their own field guides, learn more about native Florida species, compose their own mosaic masterpieces, and experiment with self-expression through color and abstraction.

Art and Culture Center premiered their third installment of its Open Dialogues Films

Visitors to the Art and Culture Center/Hollywood can now see the Center’s new documentary film short, Open Dialogues: Queer Allies. Queer Allies offers the stories and lived experiences of people who identify as LGBTQ+ (Queer) and those who love and support them.

Directed by award-winning filmmaker Freddy Rodriguez, Open Dialogues: Queer Allies features deeply moving interviews and performances that focus on the critical role of allies in empowering young people in their coming-out experience. Photographed in black-and-white, the 25-minute film includes a performance by Dance Now! Miami dancers David Harris and Anthony Velasquez, and a reading by Terry Dyer from his book, Letters to a Gay Black Boy.

Queer Allies is the third Open Dialogues film produced by the Center, following the 2020 short Stories From the LGBTQ Community and 2022’s Black Voices | Black Stories. All three films are available for viewing at the Center by request.

Due to heightened sensitivities on this subject, young people 14 years of age and younger must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian to view this film.

“The Center is thrilled to build upon the success of our Open Dialogues film project with Queer Allies,” said Joy Satterlee, the Center’s Executive Director. “This film is emotional and inspiring as it illustrates the power of human empathy to change lives.”

Open Dialogues is funded by a grant from the Community Foundation of Broward as part of its Art of Community initiative, which utilizes the arts to raise awareness and affect positive change on social issues in Broward County.

Support for Open Dialogues: Queer Allies was provided by the following Funds at the Community Foundation of Broward: Helen and Frank Stoykov Charitable Endowment Fund, Frederick W. Jaqua Fund, Deinhardt Charitable Fund, Ruth H. Brown Fund for the Arts, and Anna Bloeser Fund.

About the Art and Culture Center/Hollywood

The Art and Culture Center/Hollywood presents contemporary gallery exhibitions and award-winning education programs in the visual and performing arts at three unique facilities in downtown Hollywood. The Center’s mission is to cultivate creativity and the support of the arts in our community through education, innovation, and collaboration.

The Center was founded in 1975 as the only visual arts non-profit organization in south Broward County, operating out of a small community space on Hollywood Beach. The Center now manages visual arts galleries in the renovated Kagey Home built in 1924, the Arts School that is adjacent to the main facility, and a 500-seat theater in Hollywood’s burgeoning downtown.