Vera List Center’s Fall 2024 Programs Explore Art, Politics, and Historical Narratives

The Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School continues its tradition of fostering critical dialogues at the intersection of art and political discourse. This fall, the center delves into themes surrounding the correction of historical narratives and cultural solidarities as part of its two-year Correction focus. From public programs to exhibitions and performance art, the season features work by VLC Fellows Anna Martine Whitehead and Carmen Amengual. The center also hosts its annual forum to address broader implications of repair and restoration in politics, society, and art.

Exploring Containment and Liberation

Anna Martine Whitehead, an interdisciplinary artist blending performance, installation, and opera, will present a talk titled Still in the Waiting Room on October 23, 2024. Her work explores the tensions between bodily autonomy and confinement, focusing particularly on the experiences of Black femmes and incarcerated people. Through her practice, Whitehead raises questions about the relationship between architecture and voice, and how liberation can be imagined in restricted spaces.

The exhibition will expand on these themes, leading into her highly anticipated opera FORCE! (November 22–23, 2024), a complex narrative examining how carceral systems mirror state power and continue to replicate oppression in societal structures. The opera, co-presented with the Chocolate Factory, reimagines a sisterhood strong enough to dismantle the walls of prison systems, both literally and metaphorically.

Correcting Historical Narratives

The Vera List Center Forum 2024, held from October 24–26, will focus on “Correct History*,” a three-day event designed to examine how historical narratives are shaped, manipulated, and contested. This gathering will feature scholars, artists, and curators, including Sofía Gallisá Muriente and Kent Monkman, whose work reconfigures history through reparative artistic strategies. The forum aims to interrogate the role of historical revisionism, censorship, and the repression of marginalized voices in shaping cultural memory.

Key discussions will address restitution of artifacts, historical justice, and alternative forms of history-making that challenge hegemonic narratives. By bringing together different perspectives, the forum aims to imagine new futures that resist ongoing attempts to control and revise history.

Cultural Solidarity and Global Networks

In her installation A Non-Coincidental Mirror, Carmen Amengual explores a little-known chapter of Global South solidarity—the First Third World Filmmakers Meeting held in Algiers in 1973. Running from December 7, 2024, through February 9, 2025, this film installation will be co-presented with Smack Mellon and offers an in-depth look at how global political forces shaped the identities of filmmakers and artists from the Global South. Amengual’s research, which draws from her personal archive, highlights the networks of solidarity and the enduring importance of these cultural movements in today’s context.

Additional Programming and Publications

The fall season will also include a distinguished lecture by Hilton Als, the acclaimed writer and critic, who will present the 18th annual AICA-USA Distinguished Critic Lecture on December 4, 2024. Als has long been a voice for marginalized communities and his lecture will contribute to the broader themes of correction and justice.

Additionally, the Vera List Center will publish As for Protocols, a book that explores how language regulates social, cultural, and political interactions, bringing together a wide range of voices across various disciplines. The publication is scheduled for March 2025 and will build upon the center’s ongoing thematic focus on protocols.

The Vera List Center’s fall programming is set to challenge and reshape how we think about history, justice, and art. With a robust line-up of exhibitions, performances, and scholarly discussions, the center continues to offer space for critical reflection on some of the most pressing issues of our time.