Forum

We are pleased to announce the inaugural Vera List Center Forum, an international, annual convening of key participants in the field of art and politics. The Vera List Center Forum 2018 introduces the center’s new 2018-2020 Focus: “If Art Is Politics,” and begins to chart the investigations and affinities proposed for the Vera List Center’s distinct curricular investigations that will be developed throughout the next two years.

These interdisciplinary explorations are established in conversation with the publics of the center that include prominent and emerging artists, scholars, thinkers, students, curators and policy makers. Their relationships provide the framework for the center’s two-year investigation of “If Art Is Politics,” drawing in issues of broad resonance and urgency and grounding them in the Vera List Center’s community. The VLC Forum 2018 will also provide the platform to introduce the center’s new fellows as well as the recipient of the 2018-2020 Vera List Center Prize, and features among program participants curators Koyo Kouoh and Nontobeko Ntombela, scholars Richard William Hill, Uzma Z. Rizvi and Maya Wiley, with a keynote delivered by artist and curator Jolene Rickard.

“If Art Is Politics” considers how, at this moment of political reckoning with democratic institutions and alternatives to traditional party politics, art operates as a political practice. Can art be politically viable, and how does it acquire political agency? How does art shift and affect the sites, practices and participants of political processes in ways that traditional forms of political involvement might not? Does art allow for the embrace of a set of shared values that transcend party politics?

“If Art Is Politics” will continue to be the Focus Theme through 2020, and inform distinct strands of investigation and constellations of research clusters. As a space of belonging for geographically, culturally and socially diverse constituencies, we explore new inclusive politics that transcend conventional political systems. The second year we will take stock of this preliminary work and consider how the Vera List Center, with its public seminars, fellowships, teaching, prize initiatives, exhibitions and publications, attends to this critical provocation: “If Art Is Politics.”

Participants
Dean Erdmann, 2018-2020 Vera List Center Fellow
Richard William Hill, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Studies, Emily Carr University of Art & Design, Canada
Helene Kazan, 2018-2020 Vera List Center Fellow
Koyo Kouoh, Founding Artistic Director of RAW Material Company, Dakar, Senegal
Carin Kuoni, Director/Chief Curator, Vera List Center for Art and Politics
Nontobeko Ntombela, Curator and History of Art Lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Jolene Rickard (Tuscarora), Artist, Curator, and Associate Professor of History of Art and Visual Studies and Art Departments; Director of the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program, Cornell University
Uzma Z. Rizvi, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Urban Studies, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn; Visiting Researcher, the American University of Sharjah, UAE
Maya Wiley, Senior Vice President for Social Justice; Henry Cohen Professor of Public and Urban Policy, The New School

Schedule
Thursday, October 4, 2018

6:30-7:45 pm
If Art Is Politics.
Announcement of 2018-2020 Vera List Center Fellows, Dean Erdmann and Helene Kazan.
Inaugural Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Politics.
Conversation with prize jury members Koyo Kouoh (chair), Richard Hill, Carin Kuoni, Nontobeko Ntombela, Uzma Rizvi and Maya Wiley, introduced by New School President David Van Zandt and Provost Tim Marshall.

7:45-8:15 pm
Peace as a Political Position.
Keynote Jolene Rickard (Tuscarora), Cornell University, introduced by Executive Dean Mary Watson, Schools of Public Engagement

Friday, October 5, 2018
Kellen Auditorium

6:30-8:00 pm
Artist Talk and Conversation with 2018-2020 Vera List Center Fellows Dean Erdmann and Helene Kazan, moderated by Carin Kuoni