Sunil Iyengar

The job of leading a research office in a federal cultural agency is akin to running a small newsroom. But then I would say that.  Before joining the NEA in 2006, I worked with teams of reporters covering health policy, biomedical research, and the medical device industry. As the managing editor of trade newsletters, my favorite bit was when junior reporters came back from … [Read more...] about Structure vs. Improv: Thinking Like a Studio Artist

In this episode, we consider statistics about arts and humanities graduates and their career prospects, based on a report from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. A transcript is available here. … [Read more...] about Quick Study: Outlook for Arts Graduate Degree-Holders

In 2019, the NEA research office published Living Traditions, an analysis of the agency’s Folk & Traditional Arts grants portfolio. The report has launched a major capacity-building initiative for the folk arts field as a discrete arts subsector, which, in many U.S. regions, remains grossly under-funded. The Southwest Folklife Alliance (SFA), a nonprofit affiliated with the … [Read more...] about Strength in Numbers: Validating Infrastructure Needs for the Folk Arts Subsector

In this episode, we consider arts programming in juvenile justice settings, as well as a study of the arts’ potential to reduce antisocial or criminal behavior among youth in the general population. A transcript is available here. … [Read more...] about Quick Study: The Arts and Juvenile Justice

Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. - Article 27, Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations General Assembly, 1948) Across centuries, individuals from diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds have employed creativity, imagination, … [Read more...] about Hypothesis: Arts Education Access Is a Human Rights Issue