FIRE ECOLOGY
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Fire Ecology is a three-year, multi-part project designed to diagnose, synthesize, speculate, and report upon the current health of the visual arts nonprofit and writing/publishing fields. It adopts the metaphor of fire ecology—the practice of maintaining ecosystem health by using controlled fires to burn old growth, thereby fertilizing the soil, and clearing space for new growth to thrive.
Our goal is to transform the operations of this 20th-century organization into a single curatorial project of interlocking research and programs to ultimately enrich the ground from which 21st-century models and practices will emerge. Through this work, we’ll celebrate Art Papers’ legacy by demonstrating a model for a meaningful, controlled, conclusion of operations—in this case, in 2026, at 50 years.
Drawing inspiration from Gramsci’s oft-quoted observation that “the old is dying and the new cannot be born…,” this project asks if we might bring forward a death-with-dignity approach to supplant traditional practices of survival-at-any-cost, which too often conclude in a sudden end. We envision the final three years of this beloved institution as enacting one cohesive arc, predicated upon transparency and institutional vulnerability. Fire Ecology mobilizes the entirety of Art Papers’ output toward that holistic aim.
THE ELEMENTS OF FIRE ECOLOGY
ATLANTA ART ECOSYSTEMS
March 1–2, 2025: A series of public conversations that brought together members of Atlanta’s visual art community who are invested in addressing challenges faced by the nonprofit visual arts sector. Hosted by Atlanta Contemporary, this series was the result of a year-long collaboration between Art Papers and a steering committee of thought leaders from the Atlanta visual arts community. Together, they designed a rich lineup of discussions to tackle the urgent issues facing nonprofit arts organizations in our city. The program’s themes highlight solutions-oriented strategies for cultivating a sustainable art environment, offering unique insights from artists, administrators, funders, and institutional leaders.
ART WRITING + PUBLISHING SYMPOSIUM
September 26–28, 2025: Art Papers will host the Arts Writing & Publishing Symposium, a three-day gathering that will bring together key voices from art criticism and contemporary art publishing to examine the field’s present and future. 15 invited speakers will represent some of the most innovative and renowned voices in art writing and publishing.
This convening will emphasize a “real-talk” approach of transparency, vulnerability, and storytelling to foster honest conversations and meaningful connections with people interested in exploring the strategies and complexities of sustaining arts writing, arts criticism and publishing. The symposium will also introduce a dynamic community of art and culture journalists and publishers from across the US to Atlanta.
50 YEARS OF ART PAPERS: A Retrospective Book
50 Years of ART PAPERS will tell the story of 5 decades of independent, artist-centered and often artist-produced art criticism by tracing the work of the longest-running nonprofit art magazine in the US, capturing the unique perspective of this geographically marginalized but culturally central publication as it grew from the Atlanta Art Workers Coalition Newsletter into an internationally distributed, globally engaged publication. Taken together, these selections will also present a rare view of the art world over 50 years, as viewed from a Southeastern US perspective.
FIRE ECOLOGY: The Final Issue of ART PAPERS
The final issue of ART PAPERS magazine in 2026 will culminate the Fire Ecology theme by disseminating knowledge gained and propositions made throughout the project’s duration. Documentation, findings, and outcomes will be compiled, evaluated, edited and published on ARTPAPERS.org and in our final issue of ART PAPERS magazine.
