Dan S. Wang

Over a three-part rolling release, this edition of 

 seeks to make sense of the collapsed public/private scheme, once a workable distinction, now an ideological wreck. 

No Privacy, No Public

Justine Di Fiore

I work to bring that energy and muscle memory from caregiving into my practice in the hopes that the compassion will rub off onto the surface of the painting, if that sounds possible. That’s what I'm striving for. And maybe this is what I mean when thinking about the personal as political—caregiving as resistance.

Care on Canvas: A Conversation with Justine Di Fiore

Robby Herbst

The Model Cities Program encouraged community stakeholders to co-organize, articulate problems, and generate solutions to address the crisis of poverty in a wealthy society.

What Was Liberalism: Affective Policy in the Art of Citizen Participation

, the first collection of contributions to 

, centers artists in their own voices to spotlight the wisdom of our creative community. Anchored by a set of twelve questions created by artist Chloë Bass to gain insight into practitioners’ work and person, 

 gathers responses, reflections, and expertise from a range of contributors. Exploring the knowledge passed through creative lineages and the ways socially engaged practice proliferates inside and outside of institutions, 

 provides a window into ongoing conversations between friends and mentors.

Another Way

Kathie deNobriga

What new sights or insights might a detour provide?
What mysteries are there to explore?

Risa Puleo

In our social and professional worlds, we are all navigating tricky terrain while advocating for ourselves and our work. We hoped that ABoG could play the role of crowdsourcing and collecting different kinds of approaches to questions that we all navigate in this field.

Lee Heinemann + Risa Puleo

Chloë Bass

A Blade of Grass commissioned twelve questions from artist Chloë Bass for this issue of 

12 Questions for A Blade of Grass

Ari Wolff

I get asked a lot, “Is teaching your art practice, or is the larger project of engaging with the social practice community your art practice?” And the answer is no. Those are important things in my life and they are not my art practice. Not everything that's important to me needs to be my art practice.

Ari Wolff + Chloë Bass

Mary Patten

Ashley Hunt

I’m sure there are people who have historicized this moment, but that's an interesting paradox when these practices get historicized and codified. It's a tricky balance between the need to write and be part of creating critical discourse around these practices, and yet there's also that danger of things becoming domesticated—made safer somehow.

Ashley Hunt + Mary Patten

Avram Finkelstein

LJ Roberts

I would be a person who up until recently was unencumbered by the question of institutional interaction. Because everything I've done is in the public domain. I don't own any of it, it belongs to the world. It was meant to be the world’s.

Avram Finkelstein + LJ Roberts

Gaye Chan

TAKE = act without shame
LEAVE = share without condition
WHATEVAS = trust without apology.

Cassils

I'm looking for an inventive strategy that pushes back on the scrutinizing and surveying gaze of the trans body. This work is a contestation of that gaze while still bringing forward visibility for each other.

Cassils on Etched in Light

Denise Shanté Brown

If we truly desire and believe in the values, practices, and principles we’ve set for ourselves, we need to rehearse them now, and not wait for these visions to magically take shape in some distant, unknown timescape.

Elisa Harkins

One of my obsessions is the preservation and revitalization of Indigenous languages and cultures. The questions I can't let go of revolve around how to effectively restore and celebrate these traditions in contemporary society.

ENTRE

One question that consistently comes up for us as a collective is, “What would life look like without borders?” We believe a post-border world is possible, and we are always striving to reimagine what that reality could look and feel like.

Mona Gazala

The questions I ask in my practice often alienate me from people and institutions that would have been helpful to my career as an artist. And I’m OK with that.

The Center for Artistic Activism

In partnership with researchers from the Center for Artistic Activism, the practitioner-led board of A Blade of Grass embarked on fieldwide research centered on what socially engaged artists need and what organizational models can most sustainably meet those needs.

A Blade of Grass + The Center for Artistic Activism

explores the destabilizing collapse of public and private spheres in the U.S. today. Guest edited by artist and writer Dan S. Wang, varied contributions from artists and practitioners will unfold throughout the rest of the year. Does the crumbling of the U.S. political systems we've known open space to—in Dan’s words—“reinvigorate our imaginations regarding government and what it can do”?

Contributions