In 1929, René Magritte painted a pipe and wrote beneath it, This is not a pipe. He was not being clever. He was being exact. It was not a pipe. It was a painting of a pipe. The distinction mattered because it exposed the gap between a thing and its representation. Once that gap is visible, it becomes difficult…
I thought this season of life would be quieter. Instead, the world feels louder, faster, and more unstable than I remember it ever being. Institutions feel strained. Leadership feels compromised. Public life feels staged. Many of us who have spent our lives creating feel a tension. Do we retreat into private practice? Do we disengage?…
Belonging begins wherever people learn to recognize one another.
Governments are comfortable with creativity they can predict. They can live with art that entertains, flatters, or is over as soon as it is seen. They will even promote work that feels daring … as long as nothing actually changes. Those in power know how to live with artistic expression that splits people’s attention, isolates…