The Power of Art in a Changing World
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The Power of Art in a Changing World
Our world, our country, and our culture are changing at breakneck speed. The theft of creative works by Artificial Intelligence, the erasure of multicultural and multiracial nonwhite history, the censoring of museum exhibits, the cuts to the National Park System, and the revisions of school curricula are all threats to the cultural landscape we have taken for granted for the last four decades, whatever political party has been in power.
From pre-patriarchal cave art to poetry and art produced by unlanded peasants, African slaves, Mexican revolutionaries, abstract expressionists, Harlem Renaissance writers, Beat poets, and spoken word performers, there has always been a link between art and the ragged edge of change. This not only includes “protest art” but also art that is personal and speaks to inner awareness and internal change. Art forms such as literature, painting, theater, graffiti, music, poetry, comics, spoken word, and hybrids can all be useful and legitimate forms of art/art criticism and expression. These art forms/expressions, and reactions to those forms and expressions, emerge from many individuals and communities, expressing their varied beliefs and worldviews.
This issue of About Place Journal—The Power of Art in a Changing World—seeks poetry, prose, music (video and recorded), and visual and performance art that speaks to how art challenges, responds, represents, and critiques changes in culture. We seek both your original creations and your commentary on how art can produce personal and social change (or perhaps, how it fails to meet the moment). How is art influenced by events, and how does art respond to events? How does art contribute to creating new cultures?
The Black Earth Institute publishes About Place Journal, an expression of its founding mission to link spirituality, social justice, and care for the earth and its beings.
Work must be submitted via Submittable by October 1, 2026.
Issue Editors
Michael McDermott is a retired physician who spent many years in Emergency Medicine, becoming the Director of Adult Emergency Medicine at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. He was co-author on 20+ papers on improving asthma care. He retired to take a home in rural Dane County, Wisconsin, on 20 acres with an increasing portion as restored prairie. He has been a life-long activist, taking leadership positions in organizations. He met Patricia Monaghan in early 2004 and, faced with Bush’s second election, they formed the concept of the Black Earth Institute as a think tank for artists who take art in relation to spirit, earth and social justice. They launched the first group of fellows of BEI the next year. Michael’s land is named Brigit Rest after the Irish saint and goddess. Patricia died in 2012 but before that developed many projects built to promote Celtic spirituality. Michael continues as director of the Institute and is managing editor of About Place Journal.
Richard Cambridge’s work has appeared in The Paterson Literary Review, Nantucket Journal, Asheville Poetry Review, and other publications. He is the author of a collection of poetry, PULSA—A Book of Books (Hanover Press), spoken word CDs One Shot News—Poetry of Conscience (Earthshine) and The Cigarette Papers—A Memoir of Addiction (Fern Hill), from which he developed a one-person play that opened at The Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. His awards include The Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize, a finalist for the Fine Arts Work Center, and the Cambridge Peace and Justice Award. He is the Review Editor for Solstice Literary Magazine online. He is a Senior Fellow at the Black Earth Institute, and edited About Place, the institute’s online journal, A Civil Rights Retrospective: 1963-2013. From 1995 to 2020, he curated the Poets’ Theatre at the legendary Club Passim in Cambridge, MA, and Arts at the Armory in Somerville, MA. As the lyricist, he is collaborating with Swiss musician singer-songwriter George Hennig. Their first album, Songs from the Crossing (Swan’s), was released in March 2022.
Assistant Editors
Chiara-Marie Behringer is a senior marketing and sociology student at Loras College and an international student from Stuttgart, Germany. She currently serves as the Social Media and Administrative Intern at Black Earth Institute, where she manages BEI’s Instagram and Facebook presence. Her studies and background have shaped a deep interest in international affairs and social justice issues, and she is drawn to the ways storytelling and community-building can drive public engagement around these causes. Chiara-Marie brings a transatlantic perspective to her work in arts and nonprofit communications.
Jubilee Cunigan is 21 years old and from Dayton, IA. She is senior at Loras College in Dubuque, IA where she studies English- Creative Writing & Secondary Education. She has worked with the Black Earth Institute in the past as a summer intern in 2025.