The Vera List Center for Art and Politics presents the Vera List Center Forum 2026, an annual international convening of key participants in the field of art and politics, held at The New School on October 9 & 10. This year’s VLC Forum is organized within the framework of the center’s two-year focus theme, Matter of Intelligence, a multiplatform research program exploring the origins and implications of intelligence across species, systems, and societies through art and critical inquiry. 

Over two days, the program convenes and celebrates artists, curators, writers, scholars, and technologists, inviting communities to explore the many forms intelligence can take through presentations, conversations, performances, live broadcasts, and the annual VLC Community Dinner. The VLC Forum 2026 honors Brazilian artist Rosana Paulino, recipient of the Vera List Center’s 2025–2027 Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice. An exhibition of Paulino’s work will be presented at the Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries, Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons School of Design, from October 9 through November 1, 2026.

Alongside Paulino, the forum programming also assembles the finalists for the prize, who are appointed Jane Lombard Fellows for specific projects: They are the Nepalese artist collective ArTree Nepal for Tikā Chedna Angana; New York-based artist Stephanie Dinkins for Conversations with Bina48; Hawaiian and Samoan digital media theorist and poet Jason Edward Lewis from Canada for Abundant Intelligences; and Finnish artist Jenna Sutela for nimiia cétiï. In conversation with their nominators or invited guests—organizer and educator Neta Bomani, writer, artist, and VLC Fellow Mashinka Hakopian, fashion designer Prabal Gurung, and writer Elvia Wilks—the fellows share their nominated projects and their engagement with the material and intangible dimensions of intelligence. Chus Martínez, curator, prize chair, and author of The Complex Answer: On Art as a Non-Binary Intelligence (2023), delivers the keynote lecture, proposing art as an active “epistemological force”—a form of intelligence that both bridges and dissolves the conventional divide between human culture and natural and ecological systems. 

This year’s VLC Community Dinner, Dream Futures, centers on dreaming, divining, and futuretelling as forms of intelligence, bringing together food, artistic interventions, and shared rituals that invite collective futurity. The accompanying Forum publication, a hybrid program guide and exhibition catalogue, brings together artwork by Paulino, an essay on ¿História Natural? by Diane Lima, and an artist conversation with exhibition co-curators Carin Kuoni and Eriola Pira, and profiles on the Jane Lombard Fellows, with essays by Neta Bomani, Mashinka Hakopian, Suzanne Livingston, and Vivian Ziherl. 

The Vera List Center Forum 2026: Matter of Intelligence is presented as part of the VLC’s 2025–2027 Focus Theme Matter of Intelligence. It is curated by Carin Kuoni and Eriola Pira and convened with the support of Tabor Banquer, Re’al Christian, and Adrienne Umeh. 

The Vera List Center Forum is an annual international convening of leading voices in the field of art and politics and a signature program of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics. A platform for in-depth research and shared learning into the VLC’s biennial Focus Themes, the VLC Forum showcases exemplary politically engaged art practices from around the world, including those of the Vera List Center Fellows, the Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice recipient, and the Jane Lombard Fellows.

From keynote lectures and conversations to exhibitions, large-scale musical productions, and publications, the VLC Forum unfolds over several days at The New School and online, gathering local and international artists, performers, scholars, activists, and policymakers, all working at the forefront of art, political imagination, and social justice. Completely free and open to all, the VLC Forum presents a unique opportunity for collective learning and community-making. Hosted by generous supporters, a free Community Dinner for everyone anchors each VLC Forum, bringing together the politically engaged art community, near and far.