Curator, Author, and Educator Anuradha Vikram

Cultural Power Is Real Power

Anuradha Vikram is a writer, curator, and educator in Los Angeles. They are co-curator of the 2024 Portland Biennial and guest curator of the Getty PST Art exhibition Atmosphere of Sound: Sonic Art in Times of Climate Disruption (2024–25) for UCLA Art Sci Center, and the author of Decolonizing Culture and Use Me at Your Own Risk: Visions from the Darkest Timeline. Before moderating the Zócalo, Arts for LA, ASU Narrative and Emerging Media Program, and LACMA program “Is AI the End of Creativity—Or a New Beginning?,” Vikram sat down in our …

In Gaza, Storytelling and Silence

A Mentor Stays Glued to WhatsApp, Awaiting Word from Young Writers

Mustafa was one of the first young writers I mentored through We Are Not Numbers (WANN), a youth-led program based in Gaza that tells the stories behind the numbers in …

‘AI Is Nothing Without Us’ | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

‘AI Is Nothing Without Us’

Panelists for ‘Is AI the End of Creativity—Or a New Beginning?’ Find the Emerging Technology at Odds With the Creative Economy

Last week, the board of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI fired its CEO, Sam Altman, only to reinstate him days later—an ouster/“inster” that left many questioning the leadership, safety risks, and oversight of …

Let Artists Choose Activism

Or Not. But Don’t Assume That Anyone’s Identity Should Define Their Work

This piece publishes as part of the Zócalo, Thomas Mann House, and L.A. Review of Books conference on the role of artists in weakened …

When Screenwriters Won an Uncredited
Victory

How a Pioneering Producer Fooled the Press, Beat the Blacklist, and Made a ‘Robin Hood’ That Resonated with the Moment

In September 1955, 67 TV critics got the opportunity of a lifetime: An all-expenses paid trip to London for a week, courtesy of Johnson & Johnson and Wildroot Cream Oil.

They …

Novelist Laila Lalami

I Pledge My Allegiance to People

Laila Lalami is a Moroccan-born novelist. She is the author of Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, Secret Son, The Moor’s Account, and most recently, The Other Americans. She teaches creative writing at the …