Sunil Iyengar

With all the attempts to put COVID firmly behind us, it can be tempting to lapse into a pre-pandemic view of the arts landscape in America. To do so would be a mistake: quantitative and qualitative research has shown how arts organizations of all sizes have had to adapt rapidly to new ways of engaging artists, audiences, and learners; how independent artists and performing … [Read more...] about Early Stats from the General Social Survey: How Virtual Arts Participation Fared in 2022  

In this episode, we discuss arts programming in the context of the Surgeon General’s recent advisory on loneliness and isolation. A transcript is available here. … [Read more...] about Quick Study: Arts and the Surgeon General’s Health Advisory

According to results from the 2022 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA), 39.9 percent of U.S. adults, or 101.9 million, worked with indoor plants or gardened for pleasure in the course of a year. Despite population growth, this rate is comparable to the share of Americans who gardened five or ten years before. The consistently high rate of gardening, as a … [Read more...] about How Green Is Your Thumb? Gardening, Crafts Linked with Greater Life Satisfaction Early in Pandemic

In this episode, we consider a study about the rise in women authors and what the trend means for innovation in book publishing. A transcript is available here. … [Read more...] about Quick Study: Gender-Inclusive IP Creation Benefits Consumers

The Poetry Out Loud National Finals will be held May 8-10 in Washington, D.C. For those who can’t make it in person, the events will be livestreamed. Although hybrid attendance models are a byproduct of our COVID era, the contest has welcomed virtual audiences for years. The opportunity spotlights poetry’s living heritage as a spoken art form no less than a literary one. It … [Read more...] about New Survey Reports Size of Poetry’s Audience – Streaming Included