A Lasting Truth Is Change

Transformative justice movements—including the abolition of the prison system—consistently recognize the power of art. Culture workers simultaneously acknowledge the need to challenge the historical and institutional conditions in which art is made. That visual culture can normalize violence is an especially acute concern among heritage art institutions designated with providing the public with its history. While these spaces display radical works, it is often without meaningfully addressing the structural injustice that has constrained their production.

The editors situate this problem in A Lasting Truth Is Change, and the eponymous exhibition at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, where new works and those structurally omitted from the collection are shown alongside historical acquisitions. This book poses the question: what lies beyond hierarchical and extractive traditions that can activate change here and now? Mobilized by the work of Octavia E. Butler, Angela Davis, and Karen N. Salt, among many others, the responses from scholars, non-normative collectives, and artists engaging with emancipatory experiments at the perimeters of institutions include interviews, essays, comics, and a play.