The Vera List Center for Art and Politics presents the Vera List Center Forum 2026, an annual international convening of key participants in the field of art and politics, held at The New School on October 9 & 10. This year’s VLC Forum is organized within the framework of the center’s two-year focus theme, Matter of Intelligence, a multiplatform research program exploring the origins and implications of intelligence across species, systems, and societies through art and critical inquiry. 

Over two days, the program convenes and celebrates artists, curators, writers, scholars, and technologists, inviting communities to explore the many forms intelligence can take. The VLC Forum 2026 honors Brazilian artist Rosana Paulino, recipient of the Vera List Center’s 2025–2027 Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice. An exhibition of Paulino’s work, ¿História Natural?, is presented at the Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries, Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons School of Design, from October 9 through November 1, 2026. The VLC Forum launches on October 9 with the four-part Black Feminist Study Group, featuring Jessica Lynne on Beatriz Nascimento. The exhibition opening leads into the prize ceremony and conversation, featuring Paulino with Diane Lima and Denise Ferreira da Silva.

 
Alongside Paulino, the forum programming assembles the finalists for the prize, who are appointed Jane Lombard Fellows: They are the Nepalese artist collective ArTree Nepal for Tikā Chedna Angana; New York-based artist Stephanie Dinkins for Conversations with Bina48; Hawaiian and Samoan digital media theorist and poet Jason Edward Lewis from Canada for Abundant Intelligences; and Finnish artist Jenna Sutela for nimiia cétiï. In conversation with their nominators or invited guests—organizer and educator Neta Bomani; writer, artist, and 2025–2027 VLC Fellow Mashinka Hakopian; fashion designer Prabal Gurung; and writer Elvia Wilk—the fellows share their nominated projects and their engagement with the material and intangible dimensions of intelligence. Chus Martínez, curator and prize chair, delivers the keynote lecture, proposing art as an active “epistemological force”—a form of intelligence that bridges and dissolves the conventional divide between human culture and ecological systems. 

This year’s VLC Community Dinner, Dream Futures, centers on dreaming, divining, and futuretelling as forms of intelligence, bringing together food, artistic interventions, and shared rituals that invite collective futurity, with a performance by Oglála Lakȟóta artist and VLC Board member Kite, soloist Robbie Wing, and an ensemble of New School students, an artistic provocation by Stephanie Dinkins, and a DJ set by Moniki.

The accompanying VLC Forum publication, a hybrid program guide and exhibition catalogue, brings together artwork by Rosana Paulino from ¿História Natural? alongside writing on Paulino’s project by Diane Lima and Lorraine Leu, a conversation between the artist and exhibition curators Carin Kuoni and Eriola Pira, and a text on the exhibition’s Black Feminist Study Group by Re’al Christian, along with profiles and essays on the work of the Jane Lombard Fellows by Neta Bomani, Mashinka Hakopian, Suzanne Livingston, and Vivian Ziherl.

About the VLC Forum

The Vera List Center Forum is an annual international convening of leading voices in the field of art and politics and a signature program of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics. A platform for in-depth research and shared learning into the VLC’s biennial Focus Themes, the VLC Forum showcases exemplary politically engaged art practices from around the world, including those of the Vera List Center Fellows, the Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice recipient, and the Jane Lombard Fellows.

From keynote lectures and conversations to exhibitions, large-scale musical productions, and publications, the VLC Forum unfolds over several days at The New School and online, gathering local and international artists, performers, scholars, activists, and policymakers, all working at the forefront of art, political imagination, and social justice. Completely free and open to all, the VLC Forum presents a unique opportunity for collective learning and community-making. Hosted by generous supporters, a free Community Dinner for everyone anchors each VLC Forum, bringing together the politically engaged art community, near and far.