On Revolution

Each day, the news brings reports of violence, displacement, and environmental collapse, from the ongoing bombardment of Gaza to the civil war in Sudan to climate-driven wildfires across multiple continents. I constantly read that we’re at or have passed the tipping points that international scientists have identified as levels of irreversible climate disaster. In November, world leaders met in Belém, Brazil, to discuss climate action, but few people are optimistic that the biggest culprits causing climate change will be held accountable.

And yet, I also read about successes. In New York City in November 2025, over 2 million people voted in a mayoral election, the highest number in over 50 years, and collectively chose Zohran Mamdani: a 34-year-old Muslim Democratic socialist fighting against the capitalist status quo in the capitalist center of the world. In Bulgaria, non-human nature is reclaiming the towns left behind by residents. Globally, more and more countries are recognizing Palestine as an independent state, which puts increasing pressure on Israel to stop over 70 years of horrific acts of violence.

These dynamics suggest that revolution is not only a dramatic rupture but also a process unfolding over time. We need a revolution, and we are constantly in one. The word has two meanings that are relevant to our chaotic sociopolitical climate today.

First, we think of revolutions as acts by individuals or collectives that drive meaningful change. They're the protests, boycotts, and community care that change society.

Second, revolution implies a cyclical passage of time. What does it mean to look at today's culture in relation to histories and potential futures? How are today's events unique or reflections of the past?

How do we understand revolution as an ebb and flow of progress and regression? How do we visualize devastation, and what do we need to heal? First and foremost, we need to identify and describe what is going on and how to move forward. We need stories that inspire and educate, and no one is better suited to write those stories than artists. Artists often translate complex political, emotional, and ecological conditions into forms that make them legible and felt. Through material, narrative, and imagery, they create entry points into experiences that might otherwise appear distant or abstract. They can show us beauty in both everyday life and profound moments.

Artists can also have a symbiotic relationship with the writers who examine and analyze their practices. Writers, who are artists in their own right, take the contextualization a step further and reveal connections between artists’ practices, their peers, the past, present, and future.

The essays in this series consider how artists and artist-run spaces engage with revolution at varying scales, from intimate acts of care to collective re-imagining. Jason Le writes about Rebecca Burrell and her meditative process of creating boxes for her partner’s VHS collection. The slow, meticulous labor negates the demands of capitalism. In Hannah Krafcik’s essay, they explore the collaboration between Joni Smith, an artist, and Jade Novarino, an artist-worker at Portland’s North Pole Studio, and draw connections between Smith’s spiraling mark-making and Novarino’s calligraphy and farming practice. Looking toward the environmental degradation of our world’s polar ice, Hailey Cook investigates Susan Seubert’s stunning ambrotype photographs of icebergs. Lastly, Sarah Diver takes a tour through Portland’s artist-run spaces and connects them to precedents like Claes Oldenburg’s The Store in 1960s New York City.

Together, these essays bring form to the world and its activities. They give us words and images to understand the complexities of life in the 21st century and illustrate the potential for change. We need a revolution. Artists and writers show us how to find one. Taken together, these essays reveal that revolution is both a break and a return, a continual process of revising how we see, relate, and build toward futures that do not yet exist.