Category: Main

1. Yasemin Arikan, Terry Nichols Clark, Douglas S. Noonan, and George Tolley. Cultural Trends, Vol 28 No 5. “The arts, Bohemian scenes, and income.” United States. 2019. 

Where and how does arts activity drive neighbourhood revitalization? We explore the impact of arts establishments on income in US zip codes, nationally and across quantiles (from four to seven subgroups) of zip codes stratified by disadvantage (based on income and ethnicity/race). We focus on what is new here: how neighbourhood scenes or the mixes of amenities mediate relationships between the arts and income.

2. Grant Patterson and Leah Binkovitz. Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University. “Artist-Planner Collaborations: Lessons Learned From Arts and Culture Ecosystems For Inclusive Planning.” United States. 2019. 

This report shows how art can be used to promote positive neighborhood change, including equity of access to resources and programs, inclusive planning processes and implementation of new strategies to promote inclusivity and maximize economic impact.

3. A New Approach. Australian Academy of the Humanities. “Transformative Impacts of Culture and Creativity.” Australia. 2019.

The report explores how investing in culture affects seven broad aspects of Australians’ lives: society and place; the economy; innovation; health and wellbeing; education and learning; international engagement and how engaging with creativity builds a strong cultural life across the nation.

4. Hill Strategies Research, Inc. Canadian Arts Presenting Association. “Vitality and Impact of Arts Presenting.” 2019. Canada. 

This study is the outcome of a pan-Canadian survey of performing arts presenters and festivals, conducted by Hill Strategies Research. It casts a light on a broad range of presenting practices and the magic that they bring into Canadians’ lives.

5. Wavehill Ltd. Arts Council England. “The Value of Arts and Culture in Place-shaping.” United Kingdom. 2019. 

This research seeks to generate further evidence to support the notion that arts and culture has the ability to promote and drive positive economic and social outcomes at a local level and thus contribute effectively to a place-shaping approach.

1. Ben Cowell.  Cultural Trends, Vol 21 No 3. “Arts philanthropy: the facts, trends and potential.” United Kingdom. 2012.

This report by Arts and Business aims to provide the basic facts about the market for private giving to the arts in the UK, as well as recommendations on how it can be increased. Given that Arts and Business has since had its funding removed by the Arts Council, it may soon find out for itself how realistic some of its proposals for enhancing private revenues actually are.

2. Mark Rovner. Blackbaud. “Diversity in Giving: The Changing Landscape of American Philanthropy.” United States. 2015.

America is in a dramatic cultural shift, but evidence suggests that organized philanthropy may be stuck in the past. As the nation becomes more diverse, it is more important than ever to consider whether the fundraising playbook is due for an overhaul.

3. Holly Sidford and Alexis Frasz. Helicon Collaborative. “Not Just Money: Equity Issues in Cultural Philanthropy.” United States. 2017.

This report documents the inequities in funding for the arts in the U.S. and laid out the aesthetic, demographic, and economic case for supporting the cultural diversity of our country more equitably.

4. Ian David Moss. Createquity. “The Last Word: Recommendations for Arts Philanthropists.” 2017. United States.

This article summarizes lessons learned in arts philanthropy by Createquity, as well as recommendations going forward for foundations, government agencies, individual philanthropists, and others providing resources to support the arts.

5. Maurine Knighton and Glyn Northington. Grantmakers in the Arts. “Racial Equity in the Arts.” 2016. United States.

This four-session web conference series explores practices used to advance racial equity in arts grantmaking, specifically focusing on the various practice components of the grant cycle.

1. Peter Merrington, Matthew Hanchard, Bridgette Wessels, et al. Cultural Trends, Vol 28, No 2-3. “Using Mixed-Methods: A Data Model and a Computational Ontology in Film Audience Research.” 2019. United Kingdom.

This paper discusses a methodology in mixed-methods audience research that attempts to sort, order and categorise different data so that they can be systematically combined and interrogated.

2. Department for Culture, Media, and Sport. “Culture is Digital.” 2018. United Kingdom.

Culture is Digital looks at the way technology can drive audience engagement, boosting the digital capability of cultural organisations and unleashing the creative potential of technology.

3. Nesta and MTM London. “Digital Culture 2014: How arts and cultural organisations in England use technology.” 2014. United Kingdom.

The second report in the Digital Culture Survey, a three-year initiative to track digital technology use by arts and cultural organisations in England and the perceived impact of those technologies on marketing, operations, audience development, strategic

4. MTM London. “Digital Culture: How the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts impacted the arts and cultural sector.” 2016. United Kingdom.

A program-level evaluation of the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts, a partnership between Nesta, Arts Council England and the Arts & Humanities, which provided £7 million for collaborations between arts organisations, technology providers, and researchers.

5. Katherine Gressel. Createquity. “Smart Public Art: Interactive Technology and Public Art Evaluation.” 2017. United States.

This article focuses on the role of web and mobile technologies in evaluating, promoting and explaining public art.

1. Eleonora Belfiore and Oliver Bennett. Cultural Trends, Vol. 3. “Determinants of Impact: Towards a Better Understanding of Encounters with the Arts.” 2007.  United Kingdom.

This article argues that current methods for assessing the impact of the arts are largely based on a fragmented and incomplete understanding of the cognitive, psychological and socio-cultural dynamics that govern the aesthetic experience.

2. Eleanora Belfiore and Oliver Bennett. Cultural Trends, Vol. 4. “The Social Impact of the Arts.” 2009. United Kingdom.

This short book is the result of a 3-year Arts and Humanities Research Council and Arts Council of England funded project at the Centre for Cultural Policy Research (CCPR) at the University of Warwick. The research encompasses: orthodoxy amongst arts advocates that art can transform lives; the large scale of government investment in the arts and arts education; recent political commentary on the utility of the arts for the economy and national identity formation; the tainting of research on impacts by advocacy; and the recent “intrinsic versus instrumentalist” debate on the role of the arts in the UK.

3. Guz Raz, Titus Kaphar, Dre Urhahn, eL Seed, Magda Sayeg, and Benjamin Zander. TED Radio Hour. “How Art Changes Us.” 2019. United States.

In this edition of the TED Radio Hour, speakers share ideas on the transformative nature of art and its ability to shape the way we see ourselves and the world around us.

4. Armine Avetisyan, Cynthia Cohen, Emily Forsyth Queen, and Toni Shapiro-Phim. Brandeis University. “Imagine Impact: An emerging strategy to strengthen the arts, culture, and conflict transformation ecosystem.” 2019. United States.

IMPACT is an initiative of the Program in Peacebuilding and the Arts at Brandeis University, in collaboration with the Baker Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies at Juniata College and Maseno University in Kisumu, Kenya. This report makes the case for the power of arts and culture to transform conflict and advocates for a platform to support the arts ecosystem.

5. Alexis Frasz and Holly Sidford. Helicon Collaborative. “Mapping the Landscape of Socially Engaged Artistic Practice.” 2017. United States.

Helicon Collaborative, supported by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, began this research in 2015 to contribute to the ongoing conversation on socially engaged art. Their goal was to make this realm more visible and legible to practitioners and funders.

1. Dave O’Brien, Daniel Laurison, Andrew Miles, and Sam Friedman. Cultural Trends, Vol. 25 No. 2. “Are the Creative Industries Meritocratic? An Analysis of the 2014 British Labour Force Survey.” 2016. United Kingdom.

There is widespread concern that Britain’s cultural and creative industries (CCIs) are increasingly dominated by the privileged. This stands in stark contrast to dominant policy narratives of the CCIs as meritocratic. Until now this debate has been clouded by a relative paucity of data on class origins. This paper draws on new social origin data from the 2014 Labour Force Survey to provide the first large-scale, representative study of the class composition of Britain’s creative workforce.

2. Diversity Arts Australia. “Shifting the Balance: Cultural Diversity in Leadership within the Australian Arts, Screen, and Creative Sectors.” 2019. Australia.

Diversity Arts Australia undertook research in February 2018 to investigate levels of representation of culturally and/or linguistically diverse Australians in leadership positions within the country’s major arts, screen and cultural organizations. For this report, they examined the cultural backgrounds of 1,980 Board chairs and members, chief executive officers, creative directors, senior executives and award panel judges from 200 major cultural organisations, government bodies and award panels.

3. Scott Hutcheson, Alison Gavrell, Alexandra Miller, Atianna Cordova, and Beth Siegel. Office of Cultural Economy, City of New Orleans. “2016 New Orleans Cultural Survey.” 2016. United States.

This research examines the career and educational paths of cultural workers in New Orleans in order to identify gaps and ultimately policy solutions relating to public, educational, and economic infrastructure supportive of the cultural economy.

4. Economic and Public Policy Research Group of the UMass Donahue Institute. New England Foundation for the Arts. “The Job’s in New England’s Creative Economy and Why They Matter.” 2017. United States.

The New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) partnered with the Economic and Public Policy Research group of the UMass Donahue Institute (UMDI) to answer a few important questions about New England’s creative enterprises and creative workers. By finding data on and accounting for creative sector employment, income, demographics, and socioeconomic attributes, this report aims to provide a full story of creative work and workers in New England.

5. NEA Office of Research & Analysis. National Endowment for the Arts. “Artists and Other Cultural Workers: A Statistical Portrait.” 2019. United States.

This omnibus report, Artists and Other Cultural Workers: A Statistical Portrait, extends the range of statistics that the National Endowment for the Arts historically has tracked as part of its decades-long research function. Although the agency periodically reports facts and figures about 11 distinct artist occupations (based on U.S. Census data), this report brings in other job characteristics, other data sources, and even other kinds of cultural workers.

1. Sara Selwood. Cultural Trends: Vol 28, No 2-3. “A Possible Teleology of Cultural Sector Data in England.” 2019. United Kingdom.

This article looks at the Art Council England’s new Impact and Insight Toolkit, which seeks to collect qualitative data on the arts sector, and how it might shape the future of the organization and the future of the arts sector.

2. Regional Arts Australia. “Collaborating with Regional Communities.” 2019. Australia.

These guidelines and tools are to assist those working in regional communities achieve a more rewarding level of involvement in cultural activities. They show how to strengthen decisions, build productive partnerships and develop positive outcomes.

3. Roland J. Kushner and Randy Cohen. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. “National Arts Index (NAI), United States, 1996-2017.” 2019. United States.

The National Arts Index is a highly-distilled annual measure of the health and vitality of arts in the U.S. using 76 national-level indicators of arts and culture activity. This report covers an 11-year period, from 1998 to 2008. This National Arts Index encompasses one of the largest collections of data on arts and culture in the U.S. ever assembled. The information has been gathered from reputable government and private sector sources and covering multiple industries—nonprofit and for-profit arts organizations, artists, funding and investment, employment, attendance and personal creation, and much more.

4. Claus Von Zastrow. Education Commission of the States. “Using State Data Systems to Report Information on Arts Education.” 2018. United States.

This Special Report — drawing on insights from a technical working group of experts in arts education, state data systems and state policy — offers guidance on key arts education metrics many states could track by using data they already collect.

5. Claus von Zastrow and Zeke Perez Jr. Education Commission of the States. “50-State Comparison: Arts Education Data Collection and Reporting.” 2019. United States.

This 50-State Comparison is one in a suite of tools created by the State Data Infrastructure Project in the Arts — a partnership between the National Endowment for the Arts and Education Commission of the States — to build states’ capacity to extract, analyze and report on data about arts education. The project aims to empower policymakers, communities and families with the information they need to ensure that every American student has the opportunity to excel in and through the arts.

1. Steven Hadley, Katya Johanson, Ben Walmsley, and Anne Torreggiani. “Reflections on Audience Data and Research.” Cultural Trends: Vol 28, 2-3. 2019. United Kingdom.

Editorial for the special double issue of Cultural Trends: Vol 28, No 2-3. The authors explore the concept of interdisciplinarity and its useful for audience research studies.

2. Peter Merrington, Matthew Hanchard, Bridgette Wessels, et al. “Using Mixed-Methods: A Data Model and a Computational Ontology in Film Audience Research.” Cultural Trends: Vol 28, 2-3. 2019. United Kingdom.

This paper discusses a methodology in mixed-methods audience research that attempts to sort, order and categorise different data so that they can be systematically combined and interrogated.

3. Laurie Hanquinet, Dave O’Brien, and Mark Taylor. “The Coming Crisis of Cultural Engagement? Measurement, Methods, and the Nuances of Niche Activities.” Cultural Trends: Vol 28, 2-3. 2019. United Kingdom.

This paper compares three data sources on attendance to assess the useful of ticketing data compared to national survey data and traditional social science sources.

4. Sarah Price, Rachel Perry, Oliver Mantell, James Trinder, and Stephanie Pitts. “Spontaneity and Planning in Arts Attendance: Insights from Qualitative Interviews and the Audience Finder Database.” Cultural Trends: Vol 28, 2-3. 2019. United Kingdom.

This paper combines two radically different datasets to draw new insights into booking patterns of audiences for contemporary arts events.

5. Matthew Reason. “A Prison Audience: Women Prisoners, Shakespeare and Spectatorship.” Cultural Trends: Vol 28, 2-3. 2019. United Kingdom.

This paper uses qualitative audience research to explore spectators’ responses to the Donmar Warehouse’s 2016 version of The Tempest.

1. Anne Gadwa Nicodemus. Cultural Trends 22.3. “Fuzzy Vibrancy: Creative Placemaking as Ascendant US Cultural Policy.” 2013. United States.

Fuzzy Vibrancy introduces international audiences to a major new US cultural policy and funding trend – creative placemaking, wherein cross-sector partners strategically shape the social and physical character of a place around arts and cultural assets.

2. Patricia Moore Shaffer, Jen Hughes, Katherine Bray-Simons, and Sunil Iyengar. Metris Arts Consulting. “Our Town Program Evaluation (2016-2019).” 2019. United States.

This overview from Metris Arts Consulting reflects on and documents the outcomes of creative placemaking work, with a focus on NEA’s Our Town grants.

3. Sandy Rodriguez and Isabelle Lutterodt. LA County Arts Commission. “A Place We Call Home.” 2019. United States.

Some Place Chronicles is a series of five creative placemaking projects set in five unincorporated communities in the Second District of Los Angeles County. Numerous and varied engagements with the people who live and work in these communities have culminated in five unique books—each containing explorations, documentations, and pragmatic and poetic testimonies of what has been and dreams of what might be—created by five different artists/collectives. The chronicle of Ladera Heights, View Park, and Windsor Hills—A Place We Call Home: East of La Cienega and South of Stocker—is authored by Sandy Rodriguez and Isabelle Lutterodt, working together as Studio 75.

4. Kathryn Coulter, Andrew Crosson, and Thomas Watson. Central Appalachian Network. “Creative Placemaking in Central Appalachia.” 2019. United States.

The Central Appalachian Network commissioned this scan in order to understand what creative placemaking looks like on the ground, assess the state of the field regionally, and offer ideas to strengthen and accelerate current momentum.

5. The National Consortium for Creative Placemaking. “Creative Place Podcast.” 2019. United States.

This show is a series of interviews with creative placemakers, people who are making a difference in their communities through the arts, cultural programming and creative processes.