Suzanne Lacy is an artist whose prolific career includes performances, video and photographic installation, critical writing and public practices in communities. She is one of the Los Angeles performance and conceptual artists who became active in the seventies and shaped the emergent art of social engagement. Her work ranges from intimate, graphic body explorations to large-scale public performances involving literally hundreds of performers and thousands of audience members. Her recent 2013 project with Creative Time and the Elizabeth Sackler Center at the Brooklyn Museum involved 360 men and women on stoops in Brooklyn discussing the intersection of activisms. She is founding chair of the MFA in Public Practice at the Otis College of Art and Design.

Her ABOG Fellowship supported De tu Puño y Letra, which intersected public, legal and educational institutions’ efforts to fight violence against women with an organizing project in Quito, Ecuador. Working with the City government, colleges, non-profits, leaders, volunteers and youth to address the dimensions of violence against women, it culminated in a public performance on November 25, 2015, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The project was built on a prior, well-received 2014 national campaign, “Cartas de Mujeres,” that invited women to publicly submit their testimonies on experienced violence. Produced by the Fundación Museos de la Ciudad in collaboration with scores of colleagues in Quito, this project engaged significantly with men in the region.

Read the press release for De tu Puño y Letra

Visit Suzanne Lacy’s website

Artist portrait by Nicola Goode.