Looking back on projects by Creative Capital Awardees such as Sawad Brooks, Suzanne Lacy, Tana Hargest, and Nick Cave, Murray pinpoints a shift in the nature of their work: projects started before 9/11 tended to reveal “a fascination with a speculative speculative tomorrowland,” while future ones “forecasted a more difficult future.”

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In 2002, anxieties over the intersection between poverty, life chances, and the environment had not yet become a defining political issue, but Suzanne Lacy’s Beneath Land and Water: A Project for Elkhorn City 2000–2006 looked forward to these concerns. In her five-year social practice action that engaged an Appalachian community in Kentucky, Lacy helped organize a park filled with native plants, a walking trail, a mural that honored the local residents, a website, and the publication of a new Elkhorn tourism brochure. “Ethical action by artists need to be oriented toward the long-term sustainability of the community and its urgent need for economic revitalization and ecosystem repair,” Lacy wrote.

Lacy’s call for “ethical action” by artists seems more necessary today than ever, and her peroration was shared by others in 2002.

Murray’s essay is part of a series of 12 essays by arts writers to explore key moments in the history of the Creative Capital Award in celebration of our 20th anniversary in collaboration with the Los Angeles Review of Books. Read past essays by Eunsong Kim, and Johanna Fateman.