Dear friends, 

As the pandemic continues to impact us, fires rage around our state, and systemic racism is close to home with a recent racial-profiling incident at a highly regarded local university involving an assistant professor and her brother, it is hard at times to keep the faith.

The adversity we have all been facing is wearing on us and taking a toll. I have moments of sadness and rage.

And then, I take some deep breaths and summon hope. The arts have a place in this time, a time unlike any other in modern history—where chaos seems to rule the day. Since the start of this pandemic, we have been turning to artists to help us cope, understand, and find solace in these moments, and lead a way forward with diversity and authenticity.

This fall, we will begin a new conversation series, Scratch Space, bringing together former and current Lucas Artists Fellows and exploring their work as a springboard for radical imagining. Creating the future we want, visioning what is possible, and innovating new social and cultural norms will require the imagination of artists to innovate, with humor, strength, collaboration, foresight, and reflection

Please join us at 12pm on September 10 for our first conversation, The Appearance of Black Lives Matter.

When I feel low, I turn to music. Here’s a song that is especially meaningful at this time. A time of hope for change. Paul McCartney wrote "Blackbird" about the civil rights struggle for African American women in particular, after reading about race riots in the US. He penned it in his kitchen in Scotland not long after an incident in Little Rock when the federal courts forced the racial desegregation of the Arkansas capital's school system.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these broken wings and learn to fly

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these sunken eyes and learn to see

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to be free

Blackbird fly, blackbird fly

Into the light of a dark black night

Blackbird fly, blackbird fly

Into the light of a dark black night

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these broken wings and learn to fly

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to arise

You were only waiting for this moment to arise

You were only waiting for this moment to arise

In this series of virtual conversations, we bring together visual artists, scholars, composers, activists writers, and others to explore what kinds of radical imaginaries can unfold in this moment of pandemic, racial reckoning, economic uncertainty, civil unrest, and environmental crisis? How do we think about what is possible? How can we use our imaginations to build a better present/future? How can we attend to the past in service of the future? And how can we retool and build better more equitable models for living and working together?

Activist and scholar Nicholas Mirzoeff, visual artist Carl Pope, and poet Karen Pope discuss their collaborative work, revisit their 2018 publication, The Appearance of Black Lives Matter, from the perspective of our current racial reckoning, and explore the challenges of allyship, the role of art and scholarship in revealing and dismantling systems of oppression, and more.

Multi-disciplinary performing artist Margaret Laurena Kemp discusses her recent work during lockdown, and introduces a virtual screening of AntigoneNOW, a contemporary response to the classical play rehearsed and created online between the USA, Singapore, Japan, and the UK using mobile phones, iPad and video. 

Delhi-based artistic trio Raqs Media Collective examine how art can be a form of renewal; the importance of ‘luminous care;’ the challenges of installing and opening an exhibition virtually; and how Raqs’ practice and this moment point to new ways of approaching creation, culture, sociality, and publicness.

Join artist, musician, and writer Lex Brown and performance artist, comedian, and writer Kristina Wong for a wide-ranging conversation on dismantling internalized and external racism and sexism through art and humor, as well as how they draw on personal experiences to explore systems of power and create performances that blur the roles of artist and audience.