An Opinionated Guide to Folk Art

From Ukrainian pansky eggs to politically charged quilts, these 65 folk artworks challenge our preconceptions about what constitutes art, how it should be made, and who should make it.

The best art isn’t just created in art schools. Scratched into cave walls, molded in clay, embroidered onto clothing, sketched in the margins, painted on scrap cardboard in time snatched after work, perhaps in secret. Art is not only made inside academies and institutions by people with money and training, though sometimes the canon suggests otherwise. From Ukrainian pansky eggs to politically charged quilts, these 65 artworks challenge our preconceptions about what constitutes art, how it should be made and who should make it.

Farah Abdessamad is a French-Tunisian writer currently based in NYC. She writes about arts and culture for publications including Observer, Art Review, Middle East Eye, The Atlantic and others.