From correction on the page to correction of one’s body to the course correction of the body politic or financial markets—correction holds the potential to learn, reshape, and turn things around. Correction, the act of identifying and rectifying an error or inaccuracy, is ostensibly intended to make things better or right. Yet the potential of the correction and its capacity to offer transformation and repair have their corollary in discipline and censure.

The 2022–2024 VLC Focus Theme: Correction* and the programs dedicated to it explore the tension and discomfort it inspires to pose questions about the metaphorical, political, and social dimensions and implications of correction. How is correctness enacted and performed across histories and institutions? Who is asked to correct and who resists and refuses correction or accountability? How is correction internalized, and is it ever enough? Can it get us closer to truth, to liberation? To our authentic (and improved) selves? How do we teach or learn through correction? What are we correcting towards and along which measure? When does reform give way to overhaul, to revolution?

The Focus Theme—which permeates all of the center’s activities—is an opportunity to investigate the contradictions of correction, making space not only to consider existing histories, systems, and modes but also to challenge our position and relationship to the act of correcting. Accordingly, the asterisk holds space for future annotations. As the Vera List Center for Art and Politics enters its 30th year, the theme is also a call for adjustments, revisions, and course correction for the organization as it takes up the demands and challenges of our moment.