LOS ANGELES-Last Saturday, July 9, dozens gathered at The Fulcrum, a small publishing house and gallery in Chinatown, to celebrate the launch of the first Los Angeles Artist Census (LAAC) newspaper. Glued to the wall are spreads from modest, smartly designed publications that combine graphics that inform about the quality of life of LA artists-such as incomes, housing, costs, and health care-with photos, quotes, and personal reflections.
LAAC was started four years ago by artist Tatiana Vahan, who was frustrated by the lack of specific data on the life experiences of visual artists in the city. It grew from his project at the Bar Fund, a grant -making initiative where Vahan and others collect donations by bartending at openings and other art events. “I started the Bar Fund in response to the rising cost of living in LA,” he told Hyperallergic. “There has been a growing art scene, but no significant increase in funding for artists.”
Over two rounds of giving, the Bar Fund raised more than $ 17,000, providing grants to 15 Angeleno artists. As a member of the grant panel, Vahan noticed the same stories repeatedly appearing in hundreds of applications, by artists struggling financially, stable housing, and health care.
“We need to gather data to tell these stories,” he said. “This information didn’t exist then [to the LAAC], which is insane. This is very important in any industry. ”
There are other surveys that also cover art, but they use different approaches, such as the Otis College Report on the Creative Economy, which offers a macro view, visual exploration as well as performing arts. , film, architecture, design, and fashion throughout California. LAAC is more granular, focusing only on visual artists in LA, which it defines as anyone who introduces themselves as such and spends at least half the year in LA County.
Vahan and a small team of mostly volunteer artists, writers, and designers spent the next two years developing the project, developing and testing the survey, and working on outreach and distribution. They launched the survey on February 10, 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic came to the United States, and it had to close early, six weeks later, as a result, but they still collected 1,525 available responses. . This resulted in providing a “snapshot of what artists are experiencing in a global economic and health crisis,” as Vahan notes, adding that artists are struggling with many of the challenges highlighted at LAAC. before the pandemic.
In collaboration with data analysts, they divided the results into nine “Data Dispatches,” each focusing on a different theme, from “Basic Necessities” to “Art Earnings” and “Healthcare.” A “Quick Report” provides a more compact summary, highlighting data about job uncertainty, debt burden, and the challenges it will present for artists living in LA: 49% of employed respondents had no benefits, 40% had difficulty accessing or providing health care money, and 46% made under $ 30,000 in 2019. These reports were posted on the LAAC website and distributed through their newsletter and on social media.
Initially, Vahan and his collaborators recognized the limitations of traditional data research, aiming to have a more inclusive approach that features multiple voices. As a result, Vahan was careful in authoring a series of recommendations derived from the data, as is common in reports of this type. “It was done as a foundation where artists or anyone could organize,” he said.
In accordance with this methodology, Vahan wanted to make the data gathered from the census accessible to a wide audience. “There are a lot of data reports that exist online about the art world, but they are buried in PDFs online,” he said. “Part of accessibility is bringing this information into spaces where people unfamiliar with the data, where artists, come in: galleries, non-profits, community spaces, bookstores.”
Working with report co-author Cobi Krieger and designer Neil Doshi, Vahan created a compact, 20-page newspaper that balances charts and graphs with quotes from well-known thinkers such as by Trinh T. Minh-ha and anonymous survey respondents, and photos by York Chang and Ian Byers-Gamber.
“Our priority is the reader,” Krieger told Hyperallergic. “It can’t be a technical report. It has to be pleasant, user friendly, and relatable.”
“Ultimately the artists are communicating through the material,” Fulcrum founder Josh Schaedel told Hyperallergic. “Especially during the pandemic, we’re flooded with so much digital information being thrown at us. You need something concrete … People don’t take it seriously as long as it’s something in space with them.” In addition to distributing to art spaces throughout Los Angeles, Schaedel will bring copies of the newspaper to the San Francisco Art Book Fair later this week.
There are more projects on Vahan’s mind, such as a series of zines created by the artist that will present data in different ways, but they depend on funding. He said he did not successfully apply for more than a dozen grants before getting one in March from the California Arts Council that allows him to print 1,000 copies of the newspaper. “We still have a lot of data on artists adjunct teachers, about dismissal and gentrification, artists as parents, those repped by galleries, etc.,” he said. “Think what we can do if we have enough funds?”
Since starting LAAC and releasing the data collected, Vahan said he has been in contact through several municipal arts organizations in other cities that is interested in conducting similar surveys, such as Chicago and Detroit.
“For me it speaks to the importance, relevance, and need for this information, a fundamental need that exists for this industry and community,” Vahan said. “This was the case then, but now more people are recognizing it.”
