The Vera List Center for Art and Politics is a research center and a public forum for art, culture, and politics.

The Vera List Center’s activities are organized around biennial Focus Themes that probe issues of pressing concern to communities around the world. The Focus Themes provide the intellectual and creative framework for our activities and create opportunities for shared learning with artists, scholars, activists, public intellectuals, and political and cultural leaders. Each theme spans two academic years and informs everything we do during that period—encompassing our Fellowships, our biennial Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice, our annual VLC Forum, the VLC Seminars, the VLC publishing initiative, and all other public and educational programming.

Beginning with the 2020–2022 Focus Theme As for Protocols, we are summarizing the outcomes of our two-year program cycles through biennial reports. The Biennial Report accompanying the 2022–2024 Focus Theme, Correction* was published in fall 2025. The next biennial report for our current 2025–2027 Focus Theme, Matter of Intelligence, will be published in fall 2028.