Co-published by Amherst College Press and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School, Studies into Darkness: The Perils and Promise of Freedom of Speech emerged from a series of seminars guided by acclaimed artist, filmmaker, and activist Amar Kanwar at the Vera List Center. This collection of newly commissioned texts, artist projects, and historic resources examines aspects of freedom of speech informed by recent debates around hate speech, censorship, sexism, and racism. “Darkness” here holds the promise of complexity, discovery and, in Kanwar’s words, “visions from within the depths.”

This program brings together the book’s editors Carin Kuoni and Laura Raicovich with contributors Mendi Obadike and artist Chloë Bass in a conversation moderated by Re’al Christian who discuss the themes behind Studies into Darkness and the ways in which the book itself plays with the concept of darkness as both a tonal variation and a factor of legibility, a space from which truth can be extracted or hindered. This event is part of the Vancouver Art Book Fair’s Art Book Month.