Across this issue, our writers consider art’s real-world impact— whether through shaping discourse, forming identity, or acting as a catalyst for communal healing. Articles on the spaces between politics and performance art; the role of art-making amidst trauma; and the collaborative, identity-shaping practices of early SoCal feminist artists. Plus, a conversation with the Long Beach-based artist Tidawhitney Lek on the heels of her debut solo show at Sow & Tailor, and a new photo essay by Rodrigo Valenzuela that revisits Leonard Nadel's documentation of the Bracero Program to consider the representation of power and class in media. Reviews of "Who is it that I am writing for?", Clarissa Tossin, Dale Brockman Davis, Alicia Piller, Suzanne Lacy, and "Mis/Communication: Language and Power in Contemporary Art."
