THE NATIONAL COALITION AGAINST CENSORSHIP AND THE VERA LIST CENTER FOR ART AND POLITICS ANNOUNCE:

CULTURAL FREEDOM DEMANDS COLLECTIVE COURAGE: A NATION-WIDE STATEMENT OF VALUES AND PRINCIPLES FOR THE FIELD OF ARTS AND CULTURE

AUGUST 25, 2025, NEW YORK, NY—The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics (VLC) today announce Cultural Freedom Demands Collective Courage: A Nation-Wide Statement of Values and Principles for the Field of Arts and Culture (The Statement), a months-long collective mobilization initiative in the face of more than $27 million in NEA grant terminations as well as increasingly urgent concern that social and governmental pressures are leading to preemptive institutional compliance with government interests, and that artistic and intellectual freedom in the United States is currently under serious threat. To date, the Statement has more than 275 individuals signatories working across the art and culture sector as well as over 150 arts organizations ranging from the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council to the Alabama Arts Alliance, from Studio in the Woods in New Orleans to the Big Car Collective in Indianapolis, from the Japanese American National Museum in LA to Powerhouse Arts in NYC, as well as the College Art Association, the Alliance of American Museums, the American chapter of the International Association of Art Critics, and Americans for the ArtsPEN America. 

“Arts and cultural institutions across the United States—whether or not they are directly impacted by shifts in policy or the withdrawal of government funding—face increasing pressure on their programming decisions,” states Elizabeth Larison, Director of the Arts & Culture Advocacy Program at NCAC.

“In this moment of fear and uncertainty, it is important for cultural institutions and cultural workers to act with courage, recommit to their missions, and not forget their reasons for doing the work they do. Preemptively adjusting programs to appease would-be government censors will erode the integrity of our cultural institutions, and the independence of the field as a whole.”

“Culture and cultural diversity are at the core of democracy. For both privately run and non-profit organizations, our mandate is to maintain our programmatic independence so we can serve the public. That is what democracy demands from us,” says Carin Kuoni, VLC Senior Director and Chief Curator. “Our field as a whole, regardless of funding sources, needs collective action and courage as we face an environment of increasing censorship and retaliatory rhetoric regarding socially and politically engaged art.”  

In May 2025, NCAC and the VLC convened a group of cultural leaders to assess needs and develop strategies in response to present threats to artistic and curatorial freedom and institutional independence.  This meeting led to a call to action for an alliance of institutions and individuals working across the cultural sector to unite behind shared values.  A subset of the group drafted The Statement articulating a set of foundational principles and shared values that unite America’s diverse arts and cultural field.  The Statement reasserts the arts sector’s commitment to retain programmatic independence and resist pressures of institutional self-censorship, which is the only way to ensure that future generations inherit robust cultural institutions that stimulate the imagination, engender free thinking, and incubate new futures.  

Below is a brief summary of programs and publications from the Vera List Center’s archive related to themes of free speech, censorship, and democratic expression. From the Sustaining Democracy panel series (2002) to the Freedom of Speech seminars (2017–18), from the anthology Studies into Darkness: The Perils and Promise of Freedom of Speech (2022) to the proceedings of the panel discussion Are we ready for a Cabinet-Level Position for Culture? (1999), this archive underscores the ongoing, revolving conversations around speech acts and creative production, underlining the continuous push and pull between free expression and (self-)censorship in the practice of culture making.

Many of the early events in the VLC’s history were not documented but are described here in as much detail as possible.

Nov 12, 2018–Sep 21, 2019
Freedom of Speech: A Curriculum for Studies into Darkness
Seminar Series

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees four specific freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and protest, and freedom of religion. With Indian filmmaker Amar Kanwar’s film Such a Morning (2017) as a point of departure, this seminar series imagines these four freedoms enshrined in the US Constitution as points on the compass rose, which can be overlaid with intersectional thinking from artists, Indigenous peoples, feminists, and innumerable other perspectives, to question current circumstances, and to confront the inequities and uncertainties in our times, especially as they pertain to freedom of speech. Structured as an open curriculum, each seminar examines a particular aspect of freedom of speech, reflecting on and informed by recent debates around hate speech, censorship, and racism in the US and elsewhere. 

Seminar 1: Mapping the Territory
November 12, 2018
Partner organization: The National Coalition Against Censorship
Link to Readings, Program, Video Documentation, and Summary

PARTICIPANTS
Christopher Allen, Founder and Executive Artistic Director, UnionDocs
Mark Bray, political organizer, historian of human rights, terrorism and political radicalism in modern Europe, and author
Abou Farman, Assistant Professor, Anthropology, The New School
Rob Fields, President and Executive Director, Weeksville Heritage Center
Amar Kanwar, artist and filmmaker, New Delhi
Anna Keye, Development & Outreach Officer, New York Peace Institute
Carin Kuoni, Senior Director/Chief Curator, Vera List Center for Art and Politics
Quinn McKew, Deputy Executive Director, ARTICLE 19
Mendi + Keith Obadike, artists
Vanessa Place, artist, writer, and criminal appellate attorney
Laura Raicovich, independent curator and writer

MODERATOR
Svetlana Mintcheva, Director of Programs, National Coalition Against Censorship

Seminar 2: Feminist Manifestos
December 3, 2018
Link to Readings, Program, Video Documentation, and Summary

CONVERSATION
Becca Albee, visual artist and musician
Chiara Bottici, Associate Professor of Philosophy, The New School for Social Research
Silvia Federici, philosopher, scholar, writer, and activist from the Radical Autonomist Marxist tradition
A.L. Steiner, visual artist, teacher, collaborator, and Co-Founder of Ridykeulous and Working Artists and the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E.)
Gabriela López Dena, moderator, Vera List Center Graduate Student Fellow, Art, and Social Justice

READINGS & PERFORMANCES
See our website for a full list of participants and readings.

Seminar 3: Pervasive and Personal: Observations on Free Speech Online
February 11, 2019
Partner organization: ARTICLE 19
Link to Readings, Program, Video Documentation, and Summary

PARTICIPANTS
Deborah Brown, Global Policy Advocacy Lead, Association for Progressive Communications
Molly Crabapple, artist and writer
Julia Farrington, Associate Arts Producer, Index on Censorship; Member, International Arts Rights Advisors
shawné michaelain holloway, new media artist
Nancy Schwartzman, documentary filmmaker, “Roll Red Roll”

MODERATOR
Judy Taing, Head of Gender & Sexuality, ARTICLE 19

Seminar 4: Say It Like You Mean It: On Translation, Communications, Languages
March 11, 2019
Link to Readings, Program, Video Documentation, and Summary

PARTICIPANTS
Natalie Diaz, Mojave poet, language activist, and educator
Aruna D’Souza, writer and art historian
Suzanne Kite, Oglala Lakota performance, visual artist, and composer
Stefania Pandolfo, Professor and Director of the UC Berkeley Medical Anthropology Program on Critical Studies in Medicine, Science, and the Body
Ross Perlin, writer and linguist; Co-Director, Endangered Language Alliance, New York
Kameelah Janan Rasheed, artist, writer, and educator

MODERATORS
Carin Kuoni, Senior Director/Chief Curator, Vera List Center for Art and Politics
Laura Raicovich, Independent Curator and Writer

Seminar 5: A Time for Seditious Speech
April 13, 2019
Partner organization: Weeksville Heritage Center
Link to Readings, Program, Video Documentation, and Summary

PARTICIPANTS
Kazembe Balagun, Cultural Historian, Activist, and Writer
Rob Field, President and Executive Director, Weeksville Heritage Center
Prithi Kanakamedala, PhD, Bronx Community College CUNY
Michael Rakowitz, artist
Dread Scott, artist
Nabiha Syed, General Counsel, The Markup

Seminar 6: Going Towards the Heat: Speaking Across Difference
June 10, 2019
Partner organization: New York Peace Institute

PARTICIPANTS
Shaun Leonardo, artist
Anne Marie McFadyen, Restorative Justice Program Manager, New York Peace Institute

Closing Convening
September 20–21, 2019

Fall 2022
Studies into Darkness: The Perils and Promise of Freedom of Speech
Book/E-book

Studies into Darkness: The Perils and Promise of Freedom of Speech provides a practical and historical guide to free speech discourse and combines it with poetic responses to contemporary crises around free expression. Ultimately, this publication provocatively questions whether genuine communication is ever attainable.

Guided by artist Amar Kanwar and emerging from the seminar series Freedom of Speech: A Curriculum for Studies into Darkness, the book includes contributions by Zach Blas, Mark Bray, Gabriela López Dena, Natalie Diaz, Aruna D’Souza, Silvia Federici, Jeanne van Heeswijk, shawné michaelain holloway, Prathibha Kanakamedala, Amar Kanwar, Carin Kuoni, Lyndon, Debora, and Abou, Svetlana Mintcheva, Obden Mondésir, Mendi + Keith Obadike, Vanessa Place, Laura Raicovich, Michael Rakowitz, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, and Nabiha Syed.

RELATED PROGRAMS 

Feb 22–May 29, 2024
Revisiting Studies into Darkness: Conversations on Freedom of Speech
Conversation Series

From February to May, 2024, the Brooklyn Rail presented a three-part conversation series revisiting the Vera List Center’s 2022 publication Studies into Darkness: The Perils and Promise of Freedom of Speech. In Part I, curator and historian Rattanamol Singh Johal joined artist Amar Kanwar to consider “a retreat ‘into darkness’—into a space of profound reconsideration and rethinking.” Part II brought together artist Emily Jacir and Studies into Darkness contributor Michael Rakowitz in a dialogue with Rail contributor Jill H. Casid to explore the open letter as “a space of radical exposure.” Part III convened artist Maya Jeffereis and Rail contributor Ayanna Dozier, who discussed the aberrant image’s potential to contend with questions of surveillance, sovereignty, solidarity, and criminality.

Mar 9, 2024
Studies into Darkness: Manifestos, in Genre and in Practice
Conversation, Workshop

Alongside newly commissioned texts, Studies into Darkness features a selection of republished historic feminist manifestos chosen and introduced by Gabriela López Dena—they speak to the medium of manifestos as both a form of expression and a proposal for political pathways forward. With a dialogue and a participatory manifesto-building exercise, this gathering brought the book’s design into conversation with its content, touching on darkness as both a tonal variation and a factor of legibility, with artist and book designer Nontsikelelo Mutiti, López Dena, and co-editors Carin Kuoni and Laura Raicovich. To read the republished manifestos in their entirety, access the free Studies into Darkness e-book.

Sep 15, 2023
“My language has disappeared.” A Conversation on Studies into Darkness
Amar Kanwar, Carin Kuoni, and Laura Raicovich

In 2017, the Vera List Center responded to an invitation by filmmaker Amar Kanwar to “look at a ‘darkness’ in [our] context, something that needs further investigation although it’s visible in bright daylight.” Studies into Darkness: The Perils and Promise of Freedom of Speech grew out of this invitation. In this interview, Kanwar along with co-editors Carin Kuoni and Laura Raicovich reflect on the book, addressing “darkness” as an ongoing metaphor for communication, legibility, and non-knowing.

Oct 13, 2022
Studies into Darkness: Editors and Artists in Conversation
Conversation

Studies into Darkness co-editors Carin Kuoni and Laura Raicovich joined contributor Mendi Obadike and artist Chloë Bass for a discussion moderated by Re’al Christian exploring how the book widens our understanding of free speech as a social construct, bringing our attention to the rigidity, structure, and slippages inherent in speech, translation, and comprehension.

Jun 7, 2022
Studies into Darkness: The Perils and Promise of Freedom of Speech Book Launch
Book Launch

The launch of Studies into Darkness opened with a performance of Mendi + Keith Obadike’s musical suite “In the Mouth of This Dragon.” In a panel moderated by co-editor Carin Kuoni, the Obadike’s joined fellow contributors Aruna D’Souza and Kameelah Janan Rasheed in a conversation on the limits and possibilities of free speech. Speaking from a range of experiences and artistic practices, each addressed the relationship between free speech, listening and comprehension, the limitations of language as a form of expression, and, in Rasheed’s words, “giving oneself the freedom to self-revise.”

May 17, 2013
From “Sustaining Democracy” to the State of the Civic: 20 Years of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics
Conference

On its twentieth anniversary, the Vera List Center assesses the unique role art plays at the intersection of politics and civic life. This daylong conference addresses the changing cultural and political landscape shaped by new global social movements, and provokes responses and reflections from an international group of artists, activists, and scholars. Participants include past VLC Fellows Wendy T. Ewald, Andrea Geyer, Kobena Mercer, Robert Sember, and Jonathan Weinberg; artists Firelei Baez, Reena Katz, and Julie Mehretu, Martha Rosler; and scholars Kwame Anthony Appiah, Simon Critchley, David Joselit, Nicholas Mirzoeff.

Jun 16, 2015
Syria, Freedom of Speech, and Responsibility of Representation: The Films of Abounaddara as Tools to Enact the Right to the Image
Panel

As situations of war and mass violations of human rights occur around the globe, our hyper-mediatized world responds through immediate documentation, dissemination, and debate. Syria’s ongoing conflict has been no exception as it is simultaneously embedded deeply in the lives of the Syrian people and in the international discourse of the media, global leaders, humanitarian groups, and activists alike. Representations of human suffering and injustice in text, speech, and image are complicated terrains of political and ethical choices. 

Since the start of the Syrian Civil War, the anonymous collective Abounaddara, the recipient of The New School’s Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice (FKA the Vera List Center Prize for Art and Politics), has engaged in this international debate using film tactics, releasing one short “bullet film” each week into the global discourse. This event features a selection of Abounaddara’s short films as the point of departure for a broader panel discussion around the intersection of the Right to the Image, the dignity of the individual, and the freedom of the press.

PARTICIPANTS
Charif Kiwan, member and spokesperson, Abounaddara
Susie Linfield, Professor, New York University
Sarah Leah Whitson, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division

MODERATOR
Suzanne Nossel, Executive Director, PEN American Center

Feb 23, 2015
Who is Silencing Whom? Censorship, Self Censorship and Charlie Hebdo
Seminar

The fifth in a series of seminars investigating political engagement through various artistic and cultural practices, in particular dis-engagement, boycotts, or other modes of withdrawal, Who Is Silencing Whom? looks at how non-participation can be, and often is, construed as involuntary censorship, by oneself or others. Who are the censors when cultural producers decide not to engage? When does self-censorship become a legitimate concern for a community, and when does it represent compliance with powers beyond or outside of a community? When is silence unacceptable?

PARICIPANTS
Part 1: Charlie Hebdo
Jennifer Camper, cartoonist
Marguerite Dabaie, illustrator, cartoonist, and editor
Eddy Portnoy, religious scholar
Madiha Tahir, independent journalist
Ben Katchor, moderator, cartoonist, Associate Professor at Parsons, The New School 

Part 2: Self-censorship
Chelsea Haines, curator and writer
Rhoda Rosen, art historian and curator
Ari Roth, theatrical producer, playwright and educator
Bayete Ross Smith, artist, photographer, and educator
Svetlana Mintcheva, moderator, Director of Programs, National Coalition Against Censorship

Sep 15 & 22, 2010
How Obscene is This! The Decency Clause Turns 20
Panel

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Congressional decision to require the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to consider “general standards of decency and respect” in awarding grants, the National Coalition Against Censorship and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School collaborated on two panel discussions and a video interview project evaluating censorship and arts funding.

PARTICIPANTS
Panel 1 – Survival vs. Autonomy: Public Funding of the Arts, Free Speech, and Self ‘Censorship
Beka Economopoulos, Founder of Not an Alternative and Founder of Not an Alternative and No-Space Gallery
Bill Ivey, Former Chair of the NEA (1998-2001) and Director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy
Magdalena Sawon, Owner and Director of Postmasters Gallery
Nato Thompson, Chief Curator at Creative Time
Martha Wilson, Founding Director of Franklin Furnace

Panel 2 – Decency, Respect, and Community Standards: What Offends Us Now?
Wafaa Bilal, artist
Holly Hughes, one of the NEA4
Trevor Paglen, provocateur and experimental geographer
Carolee Schneemann, pioneering feminist artist

MODERATOR
Laura Flanders, GritTV

1991–1992
Sustaining Democracy Series
Panel Series 

Through a generous grant from Vera G. List, The New School instituted a three-part panel series entitled Sustaining Democracy in the fall of 1991, marking the Bicentennial of the Bill of Rights. The series explored the scope and context of current public issues that involve the heart and mind of the democratic ethos. A constellation of expert panelists examined common goals and points of tension in the values of our democratic civic culture, which wants to exalt both individualism and community simultaneously. Discussion was based on such issues as government sponsorship of art, censorship, and the roles of artist and citizen.

Part I: Phobias, Taboos, and Freedom of Expression
Aug 1, 1991

PARTICIPANTS
Carr, staff writer for the Village Voice and Artforum
Stephen Gillers, Professor of Law, NYU Law School
Nat Hentoff, member of PEN, columnist for the Village Voice, Washington Post, and the New Yorker
Joel Kovel, Professor at Bard College
Carole S. Vance, Associate Research Scientist, Columbia University
Philip Yenawine, Director of Education, Museum of Modern Art

Part II: Undiscussed Realities: Taboos as Content of Art
Jan 1, 1992

Part III: Left and Right in the “Nineties”
Aug 1, 1992

June 2002
Censorship in Camouflage
Panel Series

These programs make inquiries into some underexplored socio-economic and political trends that threaten freedom of expression—both new arguments for overt government censorship and some subtle, covert and less apparent forms. Using case studies and heavy audience participation, issues of discussion include protecting children from exposure to sex and violence; the definition and exclusion of “hate speech”; economic intimidation; and the internalized voice of self censorship.

Part I: The Censor Within?
Jun 11, 2002

PARTICIPANTS
Leeza Ahmady
Robert Atkins
Charlotta Kotik
Janice Lieberman
Antoni Muntadas
Allen Schehner

MODERATOR
Svetlana Mintcheva

Part II: Free Markets and Free Expression?
Jun 4, 2002

PARTICIPANTS
Antoni Muntadas
Svetlana Mintcheva, National Coalition Against Censorship
Martha Rosler, artist
James Baumgartner, representative of RTMark
Ruby Lerner, director, Creative Capital Foundation

MODERATOR
Robert Atkins

Oct 5, 1998
Culture and Public Policy in America: Looking Ahead
Panel

This panel speculated on the impossible end to the battles that variously rage and wane at the height of the Culture Wars. Questions were asked: What kind of society do we aspire to be? How does support of culture fit into our view of the world? Is the NEA adequate to the dual challenge of fostering high quality and broad access to the arts? Should we look to increase public support of culture, or should we lower our expectations? Where do we go from here?

PARTICIPANTS
Annie Cohen-Solal, author of Sartre
Benjamin Barber, author of Jihad vs. McWorld
William Strickland, Executive Director, Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild, Pittsburgh

MODERATOR
Sondra Meyers, editor of Democracy is a Discussion

Apr 6, 1999
A Cabinet Position for Culture?
Panel and Publication

This panel considered: Should the arts have a place in the federal government equal to that of national defense? Are the people of the United States ready to move beyond the siege mentality of the “culture wars” and to explore new possibilities for acknowledging and supporting the arts? What is the case for creating a US Secretary of Culture? An accompanying guide features the proceedings of the panel discussion, with contributions from the program participants and a preface by Maurice Berger.

PARTICIPANTS
Lonnie G. Bunch, Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs, Smithsonian National Museum of American History
Annie Cohen-Solal, writer, cultural historian, former Cultural Counselor of the French Embassy
Frank Hodsoll, Co-Chair, American Assembly on the Arts and the Public Purpose
Clement Alexander Price, Director, Rutgers Institute on Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience

MODERATOR
Sondra Meyers, consultant, International Cultural and Civic Projects

Mar 31, 1995
Cultural Policy Forum: Re-Evaluating the Culture Wars: The Clinton Years
Panel

PARTICIPANTS
Carole Vance
Michele Wallace
Joan Shigekawa
Andrew Ross
Brian Wallis
Marjorie Heins
Ronald Feldman
Archibald Gillies
Tony Kushner

MODERATOR
Maurice Berger, 1993–1994 VLC Fellow