As part of the exhibition Uncertain Futures (March 2 – May 4, 2025) at n.b.k., the American artist Suzanne Lacy talks to curator and museum director Alistair Hudson about the question what constitutes good socially engaged performance art. Initiated by Lacy and developed over a period of five years with numerous participants, the project Uncertain Futures (2019–) combines art, research, and activism, aiming to drive meaningful social change and influence policy and legislation. The project exemplifies Suzanne Lacy’s artistic practice: for over 40 years, she has brought together diverse groups in large-scale, meticulously choreographed performative works that foster public dialogue on pressing societal issues.

As one of the first participants in the Feminist Art Program founded by Judy Chicago (1970) and a student of Allan Kaprow, Lacy not only created activist and community-oriented art early in her career but also pioneered feminist art education and advanced the development of socially engaged projects at numerous institutions.

Lacy’s best-known works include the seminal Three Weeks in May (1977), a three-week performance that exposed the pervasive issue of rape in Los Angeles. Lacy and Leslie Labowitz Starus later co-founded the feminist alliance Ariadne: A Social Art Network (1978–1982). Subsequent projects, such as Whisper, the Waves, the Wind (1984, with Sharon Allen) and Crystal Quilt (1987), focused on the lives, relationships, hopes, and fears of older women. Both performances were conceived as tableaux vivants, inviting large groups of participants to share their observations and memories with the audience – a method Lacy has repeatedly employed to challenge stereotypes. Similarly extensive and far-reaching was The Oakland Projects (1991–2001), a decade-long series of installations, performances, and political activities. In Oakland, California, Lacy collaborated with teenagers, educators, artists, and media professionals to raise awareness of police violence and social injustice.

In numerous other projects, Lacy has continued to address feminist issues, frequently creating performances focused on violence against women (Tattooed Skeleton, 2010; Storying Rape, 2012; Three Weeks in January: End Rape in Los Angeles, 2012; De tu Puño y Letra, 2014–2015; and others). She has also collaborated with activists working for women’s rights (Stories of Work and Survival, 2007; Between the Door and the Street, 2013; Silver Action, 2013; and others). Lacy has also engaged with communities on a range of topics, including the transition to renewable energy in a coal mining area (Beneath Land and Water, with Yutaka Kobayashi and Susan Leibovitz Steinman, 2000–2006), the effects of the global financial crisis on rural communities (Reunion / Reunión, with her students 2009–2010), the decline of the textile industry in North West England (The Circle and the Square, 2015–2017), and the impact of Brexit on the Irish Border people (Across and In-Between, 2018).

In her artist talk at n.b.k., Suzanne Lacy will present selected works and discuss their background and effects with Alistair Hudson, former director of the Manchester Art Gallery, who accompanied the Uncertain Futures project in its early days.

Free admission

Participants

Alistair Hudson (*1969) is a curator and museum director with broad-ranging international experience. Since April 1, 2023, he is the Scientific and Artistic Director of the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe. From 2018 to 2022 he served as director of two museums in Manchester: the Manchester Art Gallery and The Whitworth. The latter is the art museum of the University of Manchester, where he was also Professor of Useful Art. Alistair Hudson’s concept of a "useful museum" envisions artistic institutions and cultural institutions as centres of social responsibility and transformation. From 2014 he served as director of the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, where he radically re-invented the museum, working with the residents of the city to give it social purpose. Together with the artist Tania Bruguera he heads the Asociación de Arte Útil, a growing international network which collaborates with other institutions such as the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, INSTAR in Havanna and YBCA San Francisco. Hudson has been a member of many panels. For example, he was on the juries for the Turner Prize, Artes Mundi Prize and a member of the selection committee for the British pavilion of the Venice Biennale 2021.

Suzanne Lacy (*1945 in Wasco/California) lives and works in Los Angeles. In 2019, her work was honored with a comprehensive retrospective at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Other exhibitions include: Queens Museum, New York (2022); The Whitworth, Manchester/UK (2021); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2021; 1983); Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2021); Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville (2020); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2015; 1993); Tate Modern, London (2013); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2012; 2008; 2007;1998); Akademie der Künste, Berlin (2008); Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao (2007); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2006); New Museum, New York (1983); Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (1980), The Woman’s Building, Los Angeles (1974). As an author, Lacy has shaped the discourse on socially responsible and activist public art through her anthologies Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art (Seattle: Bay Press, 1994) and Leaving Art: Writings on Performance, Politics, and Publics, 1974–2007 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010). Lacy has been a professor at the Roski School of Art and Design at the University of Southern California since 2016.