[citation needed] All VLC initiatives are driven by the live encounter of artists, scholars, historians and other thinkers and makers who together consider topics of broad popular relevance.
From these live events spring additional programs such as those featured on the Vera List Center website, including Art & Research Projects, Publications, and others.
Quote from the justification for the decision: "We are honored to bestow the 2022–2024 Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice on proppaNOW, the First Nations artist collective from Brisbane, Australia.
Developed by Chimurenga in collaboration with musician and composer Neo Muyanga in 2008, PASS is a virtual and material space that reflects on the collective political histories and memories in the Pan-African community.
With its slogan "There are other worlds out there they never told you about," the interdisciplinary station intersects sound, music and words, further engages in conversations including art and technology, community and borders, utopia and oppression.
Though her project Seeds of Change Alvs explores the social, political and cultural history of ballast flora in port cities and, in so doing, reveals patterns, temporalities and instruments of colonialism, commerce and migration going back many centuries.
As Alves grows young plants from these dormant seeds – often in floating barges or gardens, developed in collaboration with local communities and scientists – she examines how we understand the identity of a place and its sociopolitical histories.
The Right To The Image" was a series of events consisting of a gallery exhibition, conference and various film screenings, that explored the ways in which civilians are represented in times of conflict.
The collective's work highlights individuals, coming from all sides of the conflict to remind viewers both of the daily life and complexity of the civil war unfolding in Syria.
Press: [25] The Vera List Center Fellowships support artists, curators, writers, and scholars whose exemplary work advances the discourse on art and politics.
Following the center's interdisciplinary model, these publications respond to themes explored in the context of lectures, panel discussions, workshops, and other programs, and frequently incorporate new texts commissioned from event collaborators and others.
It features twelve newly commissioned essays and six contributions by Nasser Abourahme, Ariella Azoulay, Tania Bruguera, Noura Erakat, Kareem Estefan, Mariam Ghani with Haig Aivazian, Nathan Gray and Ahmet Öğüt, Chelsea Haines, Sean Jacobs, Yazan Khalili, Carin Kuoni and Laura Raicovich, Svetlana Mintcheva, Naeem Mohaiemen, Hlonipha Mokoena, John Peffer, Joshua Simon, Ann Laura Stoler, Radhika Subramaniam, Eyal Weizman and Kareem Estefan, and Frank B. Wilderson III.
The first half of the work consists of three essays by Thomas Keenan, João Ribas, and Sharon Sliwinski, in addition to featuring twenty other artist projects that speak to the role of arts in social justice.
The second half of the book features Theaster Gates's The Dorchester Projects, which was the recipient for the inaugural Vera List Prize for Art and Politics in 2013.
[28] The book is a collaboration of images, concepts and language edited by Vyjayanthi Venuturupalli Rao, Prem Krishnamurthy and Carin Kuoni and includes an afterword by Arjun Appadurai.
Artists and essayists include Arjun Appadurai, William Darity Jr., Filip De Boeck, Boris Groys,Hans Haacke, Darrick Hamilton, Laura Kurgan, Lin + Lam, Gary Lincoff, Lize Mogel, Christina Moon, Stefania Pandolfo, Satya Pemmaraju, Mary Poovey, Walid Raad, Sherene Schostak, Robert Sember, and Srdjan Jovanović Weiss.
Considering Forgiveness[29] (published in 2009) examines issues of social, cultural and political relevance from a multitude of perspectives and is edited by Aleksandra Wagner with Carin Kuoni, with curatorial advice by Matthew Buckingham.
[30] It features textual and visual contributions commissioned for this publication from scholars, activists and artists, including Anne Aghion, Ayreen Anastas, Gregg Bordowitz, Omer Fast, Rene Gabri, Andrea Geyer, Mark Godfrey, Sharon Hayes, Sandi Hillal, Alessandro Petti and Eyal Weizman, Susan Hiller, Julia Kristeva, Lin + Lam, Jeffrey Olick, Brian Price, Jane Taylor, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, and Elisabeth Young-Bruehl.
It was an interdisciplinary investigation of democracy positioned as a consumer brand that included original commissions by Alexis Baghat, Erick Beltran, Kota Ezawa, Liam Gillick, Emma Kay, Runo Lagomarsino, Aleksandra Mir, Nadine Robinson, and The Yes Men, and works by Sam Durant, Miguel Luciano, Carlos Motta, Trevor Paglen, Judi Werthein and many others.
Like the understated but essential philanthropy of its founder, the Vera List Center for Art and Politics is asking difficult questions about the place of culture in times of crisis."