The Substance of Grief: Nelson Henricks Deepens the Black Page
In the course of my grieving, I lost my capacity to represent my grief to others. There were no useful tools to properly describe…
Read More
Can Words “Bounce”? A Complicated Resilience on Vancouver Island
“Words are worldly; not just in the sense that they proliferate and float up into the sky and become cloud-like. Words world too.” Billy-Ray…
Read More
“Whitewalling,” Mishearing, and Translating Protest
Speech often fails when America talks to itself about race, about dissent, about protest, inequality, or exclusion. Those in positions to manifest systemic change…
Read More
Mourning at the Museum: Montreal’s Post-Sincere Send-Off for Leonard Cohen
The impulse to grieve publicly is a measure of our turbulent times. We know, lately, the need to share a collective sadness. However, before…
Read More
Free to Care Less: On the Cynicism of “Starting a Conversation”
This year’s spate of artworld controversies surrounding cultural appropriation and the ethics of representation suggests that we should sharpen our vocabulary, and find precise…
Read More
What Kind of Criticism Do We Need Now? Coming to Terms with Teju Cole’s “Known and Strange Things”
“We look at them for the way they cooperate with the imagination, the way they contain what cannot otherwise be accommodated, and the…
Read More