BLOOMINGTON, IN - The Center for Cultural Affairs at Indiana University recently published new reports on the 2022 Arts, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation (AEI) Lab Fellowship Program with support from the Doris Duke Foundation (DDF). These reports outline the gathering of scholars and artists on topics centered on inequities in the arts as their sector faces challenges in crafting equitable futures amidst ongoing innovations and evolving institutions. With an overarching theme of concepts of power, scholars and thought leaders provided their perspectives to the practicing artists and fellow scholars. Organizer and co-director of the AEI Lab, Doug Noonan, described the event as "an open conversation that connected a diverse group of artists, academics, practitioners and administrators."
With the support of the DDF, the Center for Cultural Affairs hosted an inaugural cohort of 10 fellows at the AEI Lab Workshop and Symposium series Innovating Institutions and Inequities in the Arts during June and July of 2022. Fellows included artists of many mediums, including film, photography, dance, visual, and instrumental art. These fellows gathered with scholars and artists for a virtual symposium and two days of workshops in Indianapolis centered around inequities in the arts. This multi-day workshop and symposium took aim at discrimination and bias, culture, colonialism, capitalism, technology and innovation, and policy. "The reports reflect the difficult and important conversations necessary to building shared understandings and addressing inequities that pervade the arts sector and its institutions, new and old," according to Noonan.
The Arts, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation (AEI) Lab is a collaboration between the Center for Cultural Affairs at the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the National Endowment for the Arts Research Lab (NEA) program. With the support of the NEA, the AEI Lab conducts empirical research to better understand the role of arts and culture in innovation and entrepreneurship.
The mission of the Doris Duke Foundation (DDF) is to improve the quality of people’s lives through grants supporting the performing arts, environmental conservation, medical research and child well-being, and through preservation of the cultural and environmental legacy of Doris Duke’s properties. The Doris Duke Foundation focuses its support to the performing arts on contemporary dance, jazz and theater artists, and the organizations that nurture, present and produce them.
With funding provided by Doris Duke Foundation, The AEI Lab Fellowship report on Innovating Institutions and Inequities in the Arts is now available on our website in a video summary and a written report.
