7. Strange Set of Circumstances

Karen Finley’s ‘Strange Set of Circumstances: White Artistic Migration and Crazy Quilt’ is a personal reflection of her activism as an artist which was censored by the US during the 1990s. She discusses her own participation in the white migration that brought about the gentrification of low-income neighbourhoods and considers how she benefited from censorship, having received recognition at the expense of silencing of artists of colour, and the erasure of the cultural heritage of immigrant communities. In the second part of this essay, Finley shares a poetic text inspired by the image, work, and story of artist and fashion designer Gloria Vanderbilt.