Chus Martínez, chair of the VLC's 2025–2027 Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice jury, delivers the keynote lecture for Vera List Center Forum 2026: Matter of Intelligence. Her lecture examines intelligence not as a thing we possess, but as a capacity we activate. A capacity to perceive, interpret, respond, imagine, and give form—and, at the same time, to be formed by the relations in which we participate. Intelligence is plastic and relational, traits that are particularly useful when it is called on to co-create not only with the non-human but also with the non-biological, with machine intelligence.

Contrary to what capitalistic technological forces imply, art and artists play a fundamental role in our understanding of intelligence. Artistic intelligence does not simply generate another possibility from an existing field of possibilities but alters the field itself. It does so by incorporating social and historical contexts, and the values that determine the type of society we are living in. Art creates context. It situates experience, but it also situates the cultural problems ahead of us. It reminds us that meaning does not emerge from information alone but from the relations we establish between bodies, histories, places, memories, desires, and expectations. The question, “What should we do with intelligence?” is inseparable from another: What forms of intelligence are still producing the social? Or—in other words—what forms of intelligence are still capable of generating cultural trust? Trust in culture and trust in each other’s cultures so that we break the sense of isolation, polarization, and defensiveness that marks today’s debates.

The lecture includes welcome remarks and a conversation with Eriola Pira, VLC Curator and Programs Director. 

The Vera List Center Forum 2026: Matter of Intelligence is presented as part of the VLC’s 2025–2027 Focus Theme Matter of Intelligence. It is curated by Carin Kuoni and Eriola Pira and convened with the support of Tabor Banquer, Re’al Christian, and Adrienne Umeh.