Editor: Cathy Edwards
We began organizing this issue of the Performance Journal around the theme of “protest” – as it related to activisim, politically oppositional art-making, and personal choices or actions. We wanted to know about the political content of art-work being made in diverse artistic communities, to hear from people to whom protest and self-expression are integrally related, and to see cultural and artistic trends either challenged or explicated.
As we gathered material for the Journal a new political era dawned in Washington and across the country; there was a conservative critical hailstorm over “victim art;” the fight against AIDS continued; and skirmishes were fought in the ideological battle over publicly funded art in the U.S. Our contributors debated strategies of protest, resistance, and personal responsibility, and documented the effects of making art in the current cultural environment. We are grateful for the opportunity to have worked with these artists and activists, and are inspired by their writings.
