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Daily Newsletter
The War Against Imagination
The SAIC cracks down on a professor’s thought experiment and the Obama Presidential Center embodies a nostalgic idea of public life.
An art therapy professor asked her students to imagine a therapeutic treatment plan for a queer Arab woman who feared retaliation under the Trump administration for supporting pro-Palestine protests. For that, the School of the Art Institute in Chicago (SAIC), one of the foremost art schools in the country, placed her on leave. It’s a prime example of the rot authoritarianism introduces into democratic society — something we have to “fight at every turn,” Editor-at-Large Hrag Vartanian writes in an opinion piece today.
Mere minutes away from the SAIC, the Obama Presidential Center, opening to the public on Juneteenth, feels like a dispatch from an alternate timeline — a vision of public life built around pluralism, civic responsibility, hope, Lori Waxman writes today. If only that world extended beyond its granite walls.
—Lisa Yin Zhang, associate editor
They Want to Control Our Imagination
When oppression works its way into society, it does so by limiting our imagination first, stopping us from finding our way out of the tyranny of control by forcing us to curb what is possible, what we may need and not yet know.
The recent story coming out of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) that Savneet Talwar, the director of its graduate art therapy program, was placed on leave after she asked students to “create a mock therapeutic treatment plan for a queer Arab woman who sympathized with pro-Palestinian protests and feared retaliation under the Trump administration” is a prime example of this decay that authoritarianism can insert into a democratic society, one that we have to fight at every turn. | Hrag Vartanian
Read More
Tough Stuff: Women in The American Glass Studio
Highlighting works from the 1960s through today, this survey at the Corning Museum of Glass celebrates the legacies of women artists who helped shape the Studio Glass Movement in the US.
Learn more
Queer Elders Series
Sarah Schulman’s Four Decades of Lesbian Fiction
“Nothing stops me except the publishing industry,” quipped the novelist and AIDS historian, who cut her teeth as an East Village journalist writing for queer and feminist papers. | Lakshmi Rivera Amin
Read More
News
- A self-portrait by the painter Clarence Heyward on display at the Houston Museum of African American Culture was intentionally defaced last month by visitors, the Texas institution said this week.
- Along the Charleston waterfront, the International African American Museum has furloughed all its staff — including leadership — due to challenging financial conditions.
From Our Critics
A Better World at the Obama Center
The new campus is an expression of the former US president’s civic ideals, and a reminder of how distant they now seem. | Lori Waxman
Read More
Community
Required Reading
This week: Jean Shin’s memorial to the trees of Greenwood Cemetery, the 250th anniversary nobody wants, Pride bar-hopping, and more.
Read More
Art Movements: Sam Gilliam Foundation Names Its First Director
Dr. Steve Nelson has been named the new Director of the Sam Gillman Foundation. Also, Aperture HQ announces fall opening date, and, uh, the New Museum partners with Penske Media?
Read More
From the Archive
How New York City Got Its First Pride March
What started as a response to the 1969 Stonewall Uprising has evolved and expanded, taking on an added urgency amid Trump’s ongoing attacks on LGBTQ+ people. | Maya Pontone
Read More
Daily Newsletter
The War Against Imagination
The SAIC cracks down on a professor’s thought experiment and the Obama Presidential Center embodies a nostalgic idea of public life.
An art therapy professor asked her students to imagine a therapeutic treatment plan for a queer Arab woman who feared retaliation under the Trump administration for supporting pro-Palestine protests. For that, the School of the Art Institute in Chicago (SAIC), one of the foremost art schools in the country, placed her on leave. It’s a prime example of the rot authoritarianism introduces into democratic society — something we have to “fight at every turn,” Editor-at-Large Hrag Vartanian writes in an opinion piece today.
Mere minutes away from the SAIC, the Obama Presidential Center, opening to the public on Juneteenth, feels like a dispatch from an alternate timeline — a vision of public life built around pluralism, civic responsibility, hope, Lori Waxman writes today. If only that world extended beyond its granite walls.
—Lisa Yin Zhang, associate editor
They Want to Control Our Imagination
When oppression works its way into society, it does so by limiting our imagination first, stopping us from finding our way out of the tyranny of control by forcing us to curb what is possible, what we may need and not yet know.
The recent story coming out of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) that Savneet Talwar, the director of its graduate art therapy program, was placed on leave after she asked students to “create a mock therapeutic treatment plan for a queer Arab woman who sympathized with pro-Palestinian protests and feared retaliation under the Trump administration” is a prime example of this decay that authoritarianism can insert into a democratic society, one that we have to fight at every turn. | Hrag Vartanian
Read More
Tough Stuff: Women in The American Glass Studio
Highlighting works from the 1960s through today, this survey at the Corning Museum of Glass celebrates the legacies of women artists who helped shape the Studio Glass Movement in the US.
Learn more
Queer Elders Series
Sarah Schulman’s Four Decades of Lesbian Fiction
“Nothing stops me except the publishing industry,” quipped the novelist and AIDS historian, who cut her teeth as an East Village journalist writing for queer and feminist papers. | Lakshmi Rivera Amin
Read More
News
- A self-portrait by the painter Clarence Heyward on display at the Houston Museum of African American Culture was intentionally defaced last month by visitors, the Texas institution said this week.
- Along the Charleston waterfront, the International African American Museum has furloughed all its staff — including leadership — due to challenging financial conditions.
From Our Critics
A Better World at the Obama Center
The new campus is an expression of the former US president’s civic ideals, and a reminder of how distant they now seem. | Lori Waxman
Read More
Community
Required Reading
This week: Jean Shin’s memorial to the trees of Greenwood Cemetery, the 250th anniversary nobody wants, Pride bar-hopping, and more.
Read More
Art Movements: Sam Gilliam Foundation Names Its First Director
Dr. Steve Nelson has been named the new Director of the Sam Gillman Foundation. Also, Aperture HQ announces fall opening date, and, uh, the New Museum partners with Penske Media?
Read More
From the Archive
How New York City Got Its First Pride March
What started as a response to the 1969 Stonewall Uprising has evolved and expanded, taking on an added urgency amid Trump’s ongoing attacks on LGBTQ+ people. | Maya Pontone
Read More
An art therapy professor asked her students to imagine a therapeutic treatment plan for a queer Arab woman who feared retaliation under the Trump administration for supporting pro-Palestine protests. For that, the School of the Art Institute in Chicago (SAIC), one of the foremost art schools in the country, placed her on leave. It’s a prime example of the rot authoritarianism introduces into democratic society — something we have to “fight at every turn,” Editor-at-Large Hrag Vartanian writes in an opinion piece today.
Mere minutes away from the SAIC, the Obama Presidential Center, opening to the public on Juneteenth, feels like a dispatch from an alternate timeline — a vision of public life built around pluralism, civic responsibility, hope, Lori Waxman writes today. If only that world extended beyond its granite walls.
—Lisa Yin Zhang, associate editor
They Want to Control Our Imagination
When oppression works its way into society, it does so by limiting our imagination first, stopping us from finding our way out of the tyranny of control by forcing us to curb what is possible, what we may need and not yet know.
The recent story coming out of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) that Savneet Talwar, the director of its graduate art therapy program, was placed on leave after she asked students to “create a mock therapeutic treatment plan for a queer Arab woman who sympathized with pro-Palestinian protests and feared retaliation under the Trump administration” is a prime example of this decay that authoritarianism can insert into a democratic society, one that we have to fight at every turn. | Hrag Vartanian
Read More
Tough Stuff: Women in The American Glass Studio
Highlighting works from the 1960s through today, this survey at the Corning Museum of Glass celebrates the legacies of women artists who helped shape the Studio Glass Movement in the US.
Learn more
Queer Elders Series
Sarah Schulman’s Four Decades of Lesbian Fiction
“Nothing stops me except the publishing industry,” quipped the novelist and AIDS historian, who cut her teeth as an East Village journalist writing for queer and feminist papers. | Lakshmi Rivera Amin
Read More
News
- A self-portrait by the painter Clarence Heyward on display at the Houston Museum of African American Culture was intentionally defaced last month by visitors, the Texas institution said this week.
- Along the Charleston waterfront, the International African American Museum has furloughed all its staff — including leadership — due to challenging financial conditions.
From Our Critics
A Better World at the Obama Center
The new campus is an expression of the former US president’s civic ideals, and a reminder of how distant they now seem. | Lori Waxman
Read More
Community
Required Reading
This week: Jean Shin’s memorial to the trees of Greenwood Cemetery, the 250th anniversary nobody wants, Pride bar-hopping, and more.
Read More
Art Movements: Sam Gilliam Foundation Names Its First Director
Dr. Steve Nelson has been named the new Director of the Sam Gillman Foundation. Also, Aperture HQ announces fall opening date, and, uh, the New Museum partners with Penske Media?
Read More
From the Archive
How New York City Got Its First Pride March
What started as a response to the 1969 Stonewall Uprising has evolved and expanded, taking on an added urgency amid Trump’s ongoing attacks on LGBTQ+ people. | Maya Pontone
Read More
Discover MA Arts and Cultural Enterprise at Central Saint Martins
Develop business skills for cultural management and production on this flexible, part-time online Masters.
Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination since 1969
Featuring live presentations, this exhibition grounds performance as the foundation of contemporary Native Art. On view at SITE Santa Fe June 5–September 7, 2026.
Divination, Mark Making, Boxing, & Drawing: “Tracey Rose” at Ruby City
Opening June 6 in San Antonio, Texas, “Tracey Rose” offers viewers an intimate look at the artist’s groundbreaking multidisciplinary practice including performance and drawings.
America Today: Voices in Contemporary Print
On view at The Print Center through July 25, the exhibition highlights the power of print as a medium for expressing political ideals and urgent societal concerns.
[analyse_source url=”https://hyperallergic.com/the-war-against-imagination/”]