What's the BIG IDEA?

The Arts Bring Us Together in Conversation.

SVMoA takes a unique multidisciplinary approach to programming. Three or four times annually BIG IDEA projects ask timely questions and investigate them through art, music, theatre, conversation, and workshops. We believe that by engaging with art through a variety of mediums, we can transform our understanding not only of the arts, but also of history, culture, place, and even ourselves. You can participate in a single event or go deeper, exploring the idea through different lenses.

Part of a Sun Valley Museum of Art BIG IDEA project

About BIG IDEAS

The arts create dialogue, build connections and help us define our place in the world. Much of SVMoA’s programming is built around themes, or BIG IDEAS, that are relevant to the world today. Topics can be serious or playful but are designed to engage the entire community and get everyone talking. BIG IDEA projects are multidisciplinary in nature—connecting film, Company of Fools theatre, visual art exhibitions, lectures, music and classes. BIG IDEAS are often developed in collaboration with other local non-profit organizations and businesses, using expertise from all avenues to explore a subject in depth.

Current BIG IDEA Project

Angela Elsworth Pantaloncini (Hilma) detail

Deeds Not Words: Women Working for Change

January 8 - April 16, 2021

Coinciding with the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the United States’ constitution, which gave some women the right to vote, Deeds Not Words celebrates the many ways—both seen and unseen—that women have worked for social change. The project takes its title from the slogan of British suffragettes, who decided that direct action, rather than rhetoric alone, was necessary in order to secure women’s suffrage. The project looks back at some surprising history (including Idaho’s decision to grant women suffrage in 1896, making it one of the earliest states to do so), and also at the way women give voice to power today.

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