This publication accompanies the Vera List Center Forum 2021: As for Protocols, an international, annual convening of key participants in the field of art and politics. Continuing the VLC’s two-year investigation, As for Protocols, each day of the Forum highlights the protocols-related work of the 2020–2022 Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice Recipient and Jane Lombard Fellows.

Ahmedabad-based Avni Sethi is the recipient of the 2020–2022 Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice. She is also the founder and curator of Conflictorium, a “museum of conflict” housed in the same city. The exhibition anchoring the VLC Forum 2021—Owed to a Certain Emptiness: Infra-structuring the Conflictorium—is dedicated to Sethi’s groundbreaking project, with an installation and live exchanges on the political dimension of emptiness and infrastructures of care.

The Jane Lombard Fellowship are awarded to Emeka Okereke of the Invisible Borders Trans-African Photographers Organization; NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati and the Nepal Picture Library; Underground Resistance; Jorge González of Escuela de Oficios.

This publication features an introduction by Carin Kuoni, a curatorial essay by Eriola Pira, and texts by the individuals who nominated the four Jane Lombard Fellows. Naeem Mohaiemen writes about Invisible Borders redefining global and local divides, and the ways in which Nepal Picture Library reimagines conversations around traditional knowledge systems through archive-building and storytelling. Salome Asega writes about the world-building potential of Detroit-based techno collective Underground Resistance; and Michelle Marxuach writes about Escula de Oficios‘ approaches to collective learning and embodied knowledge to honor and uphold Indigenous traditions for a better present and future.

“At the Vera List Center, artists continuously push us to consider new futures and political imaginaries. For this year’s edition of the VLC Forum, our annual signature event, we introduce five exceptional artists and their projects, all which resonate with the VLC’s two-year focus theme As for Protocols. Every day of the Forum is dedicated to a different project, each one proposing alternative and more equitable protocols for engagement. In collaboration with our partner organizations in New York, these artists introduce us to protocols from around the world, collapsing the boundaries of here and elsewhere. We invite you to learn with us by their sides.”

—Carin Kuoni