Several years ago, while teaching at Hampshire College, I began an occasional practice of aggregating urgent or critical arts news for reference in a class I created that I called “Tilling the Field: Reimagining Contemporary U.S. Arts Ecologies.” Since then, the name and its content have been revised and condensed several times. In its current Trinity College iteration, we’re calling it “Mapping Arts Economies.” In all its forms it is a space to consider the histories and societal frameworks that got us the current arts ecosystem. We take a circuitous journey through U.S. history of arts philanthropy, government support of the arts, the role of cultural policy research, place, and strategies folks have undertaken to navigate this maze. We conclude by imagining interventions we might each take in places we love to contribute to cultural life in a place we care deeply for. When I teach this course again next spring, I have no idea what desolation we will journey through. I’m bracing for turbulence in every sector and the fallout that will impact so much more than the arts, and yet will force us to tell our stories in ways we cannot yet imagine. This list is an archive to track this particular monumental time of change in this one area that reflects so many others.
UPDATED MAY 6, 2023
Amid Trump Cuts, Officials Resign From the National Endowment for the Arts (Michael Paulson for The New York Times, May 5, 2025)
The National Endowment for the Arts Begins Terminating Grants (Michael Paulson for The New York Times, May 3, 2025)
Trump Seeks to Eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts (Michael Paulson for The New York Times, May 2, 2025)
Executive Branch Updates (Americans for the Arts, Action Fund Breaking News)
The Show Can’t Go On (Helen Shaw for The New Yorker, April 24, 2025)
Judge Halts Trump’s Cuts to Museum and Library Funding Agency (Isa Farfan for Hyperallergic, May 2, 2025)
Kennedy Center faces a crossroads as it’s pulled into partisan politics (PBS NewHour, April 4, 2025)
“Taking Down Everything Black”: Fired Kennedy Center VP Marc Bamuthi Joseph on Trump’s Takeover (Democracy Now, March 31, 2025)
Building an Equitable Arts Infrastructure Symposium: On the Enduring Challenge of Cultural, Economic, and Racial Equity in the Performing Arts Sector (The Equitable Arts Infrastructure Research Group and The University of Texas, February 28 and March 1, 2025)
Updates on National Endowment for the Arts FY 2026 Grant Opportunities (Arts.gov, February 26, 2025)
Hundreds of Artists Ask NEA to Stop Enforcing Trump’s Anti-DEI Mandates (Isa Farfan for Hyperallergic, February 18, 2025)
From New England to The Nation: In Artists We Trust (Harold Steward, Exec. Dir. of NEFA in Medium, Feb 6, 2025)
National Gallery of Art Ends Diversity Programs (Maya Patone for Hyperallergic, January 24, 2025)
