Rest nests and the meaning of art

For my last birthday I visited the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art during an exhibition called "Divine Rest Nests". Per the description, it is an "immersive and liberatory exhibition" about "rest as resistance"1 composed of a series of "nests". That is, each room is set up to be a cozy space of some kind. Viewers were invited to go inside these nests, sit down on the chairs or blankets within, and rest. I had two favorites. One of them was a barebones lime-green "castle" — a translucent plastic membrane suspended from the ceiling, which you could lift up and walk through. There's nothing inside the castle; unlike the other works there were no cushions, no decorations, no such niceties. Sounds felt louder, the room felt smaller, the green membrane felt especially poisonous-animal-colored. I felt looked at on all sides through the windows in the "walls". It was not comfortable. And yet I liked this exhibit, because it felt honest. My body has trouble responding to "somatic" anything,…