The island of Negros is known as “the sugar bowl of the Philippines.” But such romantic imagery obscures a dark reality: during tiempo muerto—the “dead time” between sowing and harvesting cane—farm laborers there go without wages and food. “It is death built into the clockwork mandate of the sugar plantation,” write Amy Lien and Enzo Camacho in their Artist Op-Ed. 

In this world of cheap visual proliferation, we’re forced to make quick binary judgments—i.e. real/fake, good/bad, man/woman—which often leave us feeling disempowered and reduced to slotting. In the 13th installment of the Artist Op-Eds series, composer and visual artist Jules Gimbrone proposes what they term Trans-Sensing as a model for a more nuanced way of experiencing the world, one that transcends the quantitative binary of real/fake and doesn’t rely on the categorical flattening of complexity that comes with merely seeing.

“A difference between learning and knowing is little more than asking questions without the entitlement of an answer, and honoring the vulnerability in saying and hearing, ‘I don’t know.’” In his Artist Op-Ed, experimental filmmaker Sky Hopinka ruminates on power, privilege, and identity—including his own—as he responds to the burden of representation and authority placed on groups of traditionally oppressed people.

Why does the term “native” lose meaning south of the border? And why are some white people calling themselves “nativists”? Postcommodity melds poetry and prose in a powerful reflection on native self-determination, identity, and the year 2043—when whites are expected to become a minority in the US.

Gary Simmons created Everforward—white boxing gloves embroidered with “Everforward” and “Neverback”—in response to turmoil: the killing of Yusef Hawkins, recession, AIDS. On Inauguration Day 2017, he reconsiders the work two decades later—its echoes and its call for artists and others to fight back.

What will the relationship between art museums and their publics look like following recent global events like Brexit and the US elections? João Enxuto and Erica Love offer an examination of social change and protest, both within and targeted at art institutions.

Flood a gallery, embalm an animal, smash an object—critics hail such gestures as having the power to “shape worlds.” But when artists demand fair conditions for workers building western museums in Abu Dhabi—as the Gulf Labor Coalition has done—this work becomes illegible to the same museum.

North Carolina’s “bathroom bill,” the Pulse nightclub shootings, police killings of African Americans, a soaring murder rate among trans women of color: Gordon Hall responds to recent traumatic events with a meditation on the potential for self-transformation through our relationships with objects.

Paris. Beirut. Charleston. What is art’s role in the face of heinous violence? Jack Whitten links his experiences growing up as “a product of American apartheid” to the deaths of so many, including Eric Garner, Aylan Kurdi, and Darren Goforth.

A raft filled with passive world leaders. An online mashup combining a photo-op of western politicos at the Charlie Hebdo march with the deaths of hundreds of migrants in the Mediterranean, it’s an apt metaphor for an EU refugee policy that’s hopelessly adrift.

“Where are the videos showing a woman in her role as sister—or protector, or economic head of family, or devoted daughter, or grandmother dignified in her old age?” Chilean hip-hop MC and activist Ana Tijoux looks at la violencia del cuerpo en la musica.

Ever since a suicide attempt at 15, death has been a constant companion for Ron Athey–even more so since 1985, the year he tested positive for HIV. Until it wasn’t. Healthy on the 30th anniversary of his diagnosis, the artist reflects on the “post-AIDS” body.

“If you’re the head of an empire and see that an unarmed youth is gunned down by the police and your advice is for people to be calm,” writes Dread Scott in his essay on Michael Brown’s death, “your rule is illegitimate.”

“The cloud renders geography irrelevant, until you realize that everything that matters, everything that means you don’t die, is based not only on which passport you possess, but on a complex web of definitions of what constitutes that passport.”