Truth and its nature have long been foundational to the pursuit of artistic expression and understanding. Legendary science fiction author Octavia E. Butler held truth central to her work, “Clarity and truth will be plenty, if I can only achieve them.” Prominent poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou believed that “There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure truth.”
 
As fierce debates about the nature of truth raged on globally, Speaking Truth | Summit X explored radical truth-telling and its implications, manifestations, potentialities, and challenges across disparate yet interconnected fields.
 
Our relation to truth is complex, intersectional, and urgent. Public intellectuals have argued that the society of the 2010s was one in which it was no longer possible to distinguish between the factual and the imagined, reality, and simulacra. What is the nature of truth as we now see it presented as a subjective rather than objective condition? How has the growing distrust of the media, institutions, and authorities affected our ability to distinguish between the real and the fake? And how have artists responded in turn?
 
These questions were addressed throughout the Summit by those working within proliferating technology and the dark side of automatization and surveillance, global health through the lens of gender and class inequality, self-determination of those serving invisible economies, Indigenous populations asserting sovereignty in the face of erasure, as well as the media at the nexus of fictions, facts and deceptions. The Summit was aimed to be a mirror reflecting and magnifying the peculiarities of the post-truth condition, as well as a forum of debate that could offer audiences an unparalleled opportunity to better understand the cultural and political situation, while convening to envision the future.
 
2019 was a milestone year for the Summit, as we marked 10 years of the convening by returning to New York City, where it first began. Gathering at The Great Hall, Cooper Union where the second ever Summit was held in 2010, acknowledged the Summit’s history and the hall’s legacy as a locus for debate, political action, and truth-telling. Upon founding The Cooper Union, Peter Cooper said, “I trust the young will here catch the inspiration of truth in all its native power and beauty, and find in it a source of inexpressible pleasure to spread its transformed influence throughout the world.” We were honored to take the stage at The Great Hall and activate the East Village, a nexus for generations of grassroots organizing and action.
 
Questions about accessibility at the Summit? Find out more here.
 

SCHEDULE AT A GLANCE

 
Full schedule can be found here.
 
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 14
Kick-Off Party at Lola
 
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 15
Presentations at The Great Hall, Cooper Union
Summit Lunch at Floret, Sister City (RSVP Here)
Summit X Dinners at satellite venues across NYC
 
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 16
Summit X Sessions at Cooper Union and venues in the East Village
Summit Lunch at Floret, Sister City (RSVP Here)
 

SUMMIT X STAGE

LARA BALADI JOSH BEGLEY ARUNA D’SOUZA STEPHANIE DINKINS ABIGAIL ECHO-HAWK YOUSRA ELBAGIR LÉULI ESHRAGHI CHARLES GAINES

ERIC GOTTESMAN & HANK WILLIS THOMAS (FOR FREEDOMS) JEREMY O. HARRIS MARISA MORÁN JAHN CHRIS KRAUS KIA LABEIJA VICTORIA LOMASKO

LAURA RAICOVICH LAURIE JO REYNOLDS & THE CHICAGO 400 LARISSA SANSOUR SALLY SZWED TSIGE TAFESSE NATO THOMPSON ANTON VIDOKLE LAUREN WOODS

SETTING THE STAGE WITH CHRISTOPHER MYERS

 
Each year, Creative Time commissions an artist to interpret and visualize the Summit’s thematic aims. Inspired by the evolution of Summit convenings over the last decade, Christopher Myers created a series of rich and vibrant tapestries that simultaneously evoked underlying historical narratives and the history of Creative Time. Myers’ striking designs drew on a variety of themes, all intersecting with and questioning notions of truth. Several of his works drew from a trove of history’s most contested images – those often censored or erased. Others visualized monuments and monumentality – a direct challenge to the shifting status of the modernist conception of heroes. Myers also reimagined some of Creative Time’s most beloved projects—including Hunter Reynolds’ 1994 Patina du Prey’s Memorial Dress and Paul Chan’s 2007 Waiting for Godot in New Orleans⁠—into abstracted representations that speak to the organization’s enduring legacy of reflecting on truth and engendering debate through artists’ work and voices.
 
Christopher Myers is an artist and writer who lives in New York and is widely acclaimed for his literature for young people, including H.O.R.S.E, Firebird, and My Pen. He has lectured and exhibited internationally at venues including Fort Gansevoort, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, MoMA PS1, and The Studio Museum in Harlem. Myers won a Caldecott Honor in 1998 for his illustrations in the book Harlem and the Coretta Scott King Award in 2016 for illustrating Firebird with Misty Copeland.
 

SUMMIT X DINNERS

 
Fostering communal spaces where attendees can refuel, relax, and get to know each other after a full day of presentations, Summit X Dinners were a program of dinner activations taking place across the city. Organized and hosted by local artists and organizations, Summit X Dinners ranged in cuisine, format, venue, and intimacy, yet all spoke to the Summit’s themes.
 
Full schedule can be found here.
 

SUMMIT X SESSIONS

 
Summit X Sessions were a full day of highly interactive events geared towards engaged and alternative learning. Led by artists, organizations, collectives, and grass-roots movements, Summit X Sessions took various creative formats and included walking tours, hands-on workshops, panel discussions, roundtables, training sessions, interactive performances, film screenings, and other community driven, strategy focused formats. Sessions had been selected through an open call process, whilst others were organized by the Creative Time team and were intended to offer spaces for exchange and share practical tactics that make creative praxis possible.
 
Over 30 sessions were available for attendees to take part in and were led by: Adelaide Matthew Dicken, Adriene Jenik, A.L Steiner, American Indian Community House, Andrew S. Vargas, Ariana Jacob, Art in Ad Places, Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, Carlos Motta, Damali Abrams, Darija Medic, The Death Panel, Dipti Desai, Eli Brown, Forward Union, Gretchen Coombs, Jas Lujan, Jessica Hamlin, Julia Meltzer, Kayhan Irani, Laura Allcorn, Lisa Moren, Maria Hupfield, Michael Hof, Mihaela Dragan, Molly Crabapple, Monument Lab, Mykola Ridnyi, National Coalition Against Censorship, Nato Thompson, Pelenakeke Brown, Rashida Bumbray, Shane Aslan Selzer and VisualAids, Sheetal Prajapati, Situ Research, Small Data Industries, Taeyoon Choi, Theodore (ted) Kerr, Tiffany Jones and City as School 2019 interns, UltraViolet Archive, Viva Ruiz from Thank God for Abortion, 8-Ball Community Inc.
 
Full schedule can be found here.

MAKING ANOTHER WORLD POSSIBLE:

 

10 CREATIVE TIME SUMMITS, 10 GLOBAL ISSUES, 100 ART PROJECTS

 
Edited by Corina L. Apostol and Nato Thompson. Published by Routledge.
 
This three part book surveys socially engaged cultural practices that address the urgencies of contemporary social movements. Complete with a selected timeline of socially engaged art since the end of WW2 by Russian collective Chto Delat, Creative Time’s latest publication offers a review of the current state of the field, a dive into ten global issues through commissioned essays, and showcases one hundred inspiring artistic projects from around the world.
 
Order here.