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Sue Bell Yank

Sue Bell Yank is a writer, producer, and arts organizer. She currently works as an online education producer for the Oprah Winfrey Network and was formerly the Associate Director of Academic Programs at the Hammer Museum. She graduated from the Masters of Public Art Studies program at USC, focusing on the role of contemporary art in rebuilding efforts after a crisis, focusing on post­-Katrina New Orleans. She has a deep­-seated investment in socially and politically-­engaged art that can be traced to her years as a public school teacher in Lynwood and South Fairfax. She is currently an advisor for the Asian Arts Initiative's Social Practice Lab and the granting organization SPArt, was a curatorial advisor for the Creative Time Living as Form exhibition (2011), and was part of the curatorial team for the 2008 California Biennial. Her writing has been featured in exhibition catalogues, Journal of Aesthetics and Protest, the Huffington Post, KCET Artbound, and various arts blogs including her ongoing essay blog entitled Social Practice: Writings about the social in contemporary art. She has been a lecturer at California College of the Arts, Otis College of Art and Design, UCLA, and USC.

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The Ecstasy of Ambiguity: Asher Hartman's Purple Electric Play
A mix of black light theater and black magic, "PEP!" is an underground theatrical performance tackling revolution, power, and violence.
PS1010, Break down outside Flagstaff. Photo courtesy Concord.
Concord Art Space: The Precarity of the Poets Next Door
Now-shuttered Cypress Park art space, Concord, leaves behind a legacy as a space driven by art, ideas, and a deeper understanding of the world and ourselves.
thefreechurch
The Museum of Public Fiction: Collaboration in Highland Park
The Museum of Public Fiction is a site to experiment with installations, performances and shows on a changing topic.
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Pehrspace: Experimental Music and Art in Historic Filipinotown
Pehrspace, located in L.A.'s Historic Filipinotown, showcases an expanding range of artists and musicians.
An opening party in elephant's backyard. | Photo: Bianca D'Amico and courtesy elephant.
Elephant Art Space: At Home in the Arts
Glassell Park's Elephant Art Space is a contemporary artist-run space where studio artists collaborate to provide outside curators and artists a physical location for exhibitions.
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Actual Size: Chinatown's Hybridized Art Space
Actual Size, a small storefront gallery in L.A.'s Chinatown, serves as a collaborative creative platform for curatorial interventions and artistic projects.
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Occupy the Mind: Pedagogy, 'Capitalocentrism' and the Arts Fantasy
SOC(i)AL: Art + People investigates the precarity of workers in our current economy, the relationship of the university to activism, manifestations of art in politics, and the future of Occupy.
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How Can Artists and the Eastside Generate Change Together?
Elizabeth Blaney and Dont Rhine of the collective Ultra-red engage with activist organizations in L.A. to see how artists can work with communities to create change.
Do We Need Artists in Art Museums?
Asuka Hisa and Olga Koumoundouras discuss their collaboration on the Wall Works project entitled CART -- What Do We Need to Get By and How Do We Get There.
QMA collaborates with the Uni Project to bring a mobile reading room to the newly pedestrianized Corona Plaza, August 2012. Photo | Courtesy of the Queens Museum of Art.
The Case of the Queens Museum of Art and Corona Plaza
Sue Bell Yank sits down with Bill Kelley, Jr. and Prerana Reddy to speak about Queens as a vanguard for integrating socially-engaged art into a museum context, and as a case study for the changing role of the museum in civic life.
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Can Artists Use Technology to Enable Communities?
SOCiAL: Art + People speaks with Anne Bray, founder of LA Freewaves, and Fabian Wagmistert about how they create generative, civically-engaged networks in Los Angeles.
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La Tierra de la Culebra Park: Can Artists Heal Nature?
In this SOCiAL: Art + People installment, Sue Bell Yank shares the dialogue created between 10 individuals deeply engaged in the relationship of art, nature and social justice.
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