The right to boredom

For days now, the words of Finnish artist Kalle Nio have been turning over in my mind, from an interview I did with him about his remarkable performance Tempo: “It is a gift to be able to experience boredom, and to stay with it rather than immediately escape it.”

Nio came to appreciate this feeling when he realised that boredom, these days, seems to have almost disappeared altogether. There is something almost ironic about hearing that from a performance artist—borderline off-putting, even...