BERLIN.- The American artist Suzanne Lacy (*1945 in Wasco/California) is regarded as a pioneer of socially engaged performance art. Since the 1970s, she has collaborated with diverse communities on projects and interventions addressing gender equality, violence against women, racism, immigration, and workers’ rights. For the project Uncertain Futures, Lacy worked with Manchester Art Gallery, university academics, an advisory group, and more than 100 women in Manchester, UK, from 2019 to 2024 to develop interviews, workshops, and presentations examining the inequalities faced by women over 50 in relation to work and unemployment.
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Bringing together a range of stories that highlight experiences of intersectional disadvantage, the video installation produced as a summary of this project is being shown in Germany for the first time at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.).
Developed over five years, Uncertain Futures encompassed three exhibitions at Manchester Art Gallery, serving as a framework for ongoing research into its central themes. The project launched in June 2021 with 100 on-site interviews with women over the age of 50. Participants, invited with the assistance of an advisory group, reflected the diversity of Manchester’s population. During the interviews, they shared insights into how gender, age, work, class, migration status, disability, and ethnicity shape women’s experiences of paid and unpaid work. Transcribed and anonymized, the interviews were made available for visitors to read during the exhibition. In March 2022, the 100 women gathered for a celebratory dinner that honored their engagement and provided an opportunity to connect with one another. For the second exhibition, which opened in Septem- ber 2022, the research team – led by Dr. Sarah Campbell (Senior Lecturer in Social Work at Manchester Metropolitan University) and Dr. Elaine Dewhurst (Senior Lecturer in Employment Law at the University of Manchester) – presented initial findings and policy recommendations based on their analysis of the interviews. A dedicated website (uncertainfuturesproject.co.uk) was also launched to showcase the project and highlight its potential impact on social policy and legislation. The third and final exhibition, which opened in March 2024, summarized the study’s results.
n.b.k. presents Uncertain Futures for the first time in Germany, where women over 50 face similar structural disadvantages to those in the UK. These include sexism, discrimination based on social status, origin, or illness, unpaid and unequally distributed care work, the gender pay gap, and poverty in old age, all of which are omnipresent. This is exemplified in Her Uncertain Futures (2024), a 3-channel video installation by Suzanne Lacy that serves as a summary of the project. In the video, the artist weaves together excerpts from the project’s interviews, recited in a theater hall by members of the project team, particularly the advisory group. Their collective voices and shared experiences testify to the universality of discrimination against women, while also highlighting the potential of networking and collective resistance.
The film is accompanied by a group photo of the 100 women, displayed in the entrance area of the n.b.k. Showroom. The research team around Suzanne Lacy also authored a manifesto advocating for long-term improvements in the lives of women over 50 and produced a documentary film that provides insights into the development and execution of the research project. Both the manifesto and the documentary are available on the n.b.k. website.
Uncertain Futures combines art, research, and activism, aiming to drive meaningful social change and influ- ence policy and legislation. The project exemplifies Suzanne Lacy’s artistic practice: for over 40 years, she has brought together diverse groups in large-scale, meticulously choreographed performative works that foster public dialogue on pressing societal issues.
Lacy was one of the first participants in the Feminist Art Program founded by Judy Chicago in 1970 at Fresno State College – the first initiative of its kind in the United States – and a student of Allan Kaprow at the California Institute of the Arts. Early in her career, she created activist and community-oriented art, while also pioneering feminist art education and the development of socially engaged projects at numerous institutions.
Lacy’s best-known works include the seminal Three Weeks in May (1977), a three-week performance that exposed the pervasive issue of rape in Los Angeles. Lacy and Leslie Labowitz Starus later co-founded the feminist alliance Ariadne: A Social Art Network (1978–1982).
Subsequent projects, such as Whisper, the Waves, the Wind (1984, with Sharon Allen) and Crystal Quilt (1987), focused on the lives, relationships, hopes, and fears of older women. Both performances were conceived as tableaux vivants, inviting large groups of participants to share their observations and memories with the audience – a method Lacy has repeatedly employed to challenge stereotypes. Crystal Quilt was one of her most ambitious and complex works. Developed over two years, it brought together 430 women over the age of 60 to speak about the portrayal of aging women in the media and their public perception.
Similarly extensive and far-reaching was The Oakland Projects (1991–2001), a decade-long series of installations, performances, and political activities. In Oakland, California, Lacy collaborated with teenagers, educators, artists, and media professionals to raise awareness of police violence and social injustice. As part of the sub-project The Roof is On Fire (1993–1994), teen media literacy courses were developed, culminating in a collaboratively produced, nationally broadcast documentary film that shared the teens’ perspectives on family, sexuality, drugs, music, and community.
In numerous other projects, Lacy has continued to address feminist issues, frequently creating performances focused on violence against women (Tattooed Skeleton, 2010; Storying Rape, 2012; Three Weeks in January: End Rape in Los Angeles, 2012; De tu Puño y Letra, 2014–2015; and others). She has also collaborated with activists working for women’s rights (Stories of Work and Survival, 2007; Between the Door and the Street, 2013; Silver Action, 2013; and others).
Lacy has also engaged with communities on a range of topics, including the transition to renewable energy in a coal mining area (Beneath Land and Water, with Yutaka Kobayashi and Susan Leibovitz Steinman, 2000– 2006), the effects of the global financial crisis on rural communities (Reunion / Reunión, with her students 2009–2010), the decline of the textile industry in North West England (The Circle and the Square, 2015–2017), and the impact of Brexit on the Irish Border people (Across and In-Between, 2018).
Suzanne Lacy (*1945 in Wasco/California) lives and works in Los Angeles. In 2019, her work was honored with a comprehensive retrospective at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Other exhibitions include: Queens Museum, New York (2022); The Whitworth, Manchester/UK (2021); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2021; 1983); Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2021); Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville (2020); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2015; 1993); Tate Modern, London (2013); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2012; 2008; 2007;1998); Akademie der Künste, Berlin (2008); Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao (2007); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2006); New Museum, New York (1983); Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (1980), The Woman’s Building, Los Angeles (1974). As an author, Lacy has shaped the discourse on socially responsible and activist public art through her anthologies Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art (Seattle: Bay Press, 1994) and Leaving Art: Writings on Performance, Politics, and Publics, 1974–2007 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010). Lacy has been a professor at the Roski School of Art and Design at the University of Southern California since 2016.
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