“Our world is more divided than I’ve ever known in my lifetime, and I am deeply moved bythe efforts of the NEA to formalize this initiative for Understanding. Most of the time, I feellike we humans have forgotten how to listen to each other; we lack the middle spaces wherepeople can be right and wrong at the same time. Art allows us to hang in the middle of possibility, to consider new and different points of view, and to crack open our hearts tovoices that didn’t inhabit thembefore. If we can’t make change nation by nation, maybe wecan do it artist by artist, human by human.”