Do You Expect Your Art to Answer?

Do You Expect Your Art to Answer? is a collection of ekphrastic poems that explores the world of art and our relationship to it. Born from an experience at the Whitney Biennial (New York), at which an artist, in a room she had created in the museum, challenged an abusive patron using the question raised in the title, the collection explores the idea that art and human beings are in constant conversation with each other, whether or not we are using language. Inspired by art she has seen both abroad and in the U.S., as well as works of literature and other artefacts, Peterson investigates the ways in which we are absent from or present in each other’s lives.