“In their mandate to be awake to life, and to awaken others, the sympathies of artists and activists seemingly align. But in the activist context, awake becomes ‘woke’ — not a personal practice of observation and a transmutation within form, but a communal decision in service of a desired change. This ‘in service of’ is the sticking point for artists.” (At the end of that road lies Socialist Realism.) Arielle Angel looks back at her many attempts to unite art and activism on equal terms — and her questions about whether, in the current moment, the former is a luxury she should give up in favor of the latter.