Nexus

“Sing in me, oh Muse, and through me tell the story.” Homer’s opening to the Odyssey is one of the most well-known lines of what we call literature—but the Greeks called song. This particular translation—by Robert Fitzgerald with an added “oh”—puts Homer somewhere between singing and storytelling. And now, taking his seat next to Homer, at least according to the 2016 Nobel prize committee for literature, is Bob …

California is undergoing massive changes in technology, demography, the nature of work and, thus, in leisure activity. So is its cultural sector, with consequences for how Californians experience art and for how California organizations and artists deliver the arts and engage their audiences.
Over the last three decades, the term “arts participation” has essentially been understood as arts attendance within the non-profit arts field. The field’s …

It may appear surprising or counter-intuitive to operate a bilingual, Latino-centered theater company in a city that is less than 10 percent Latino.
But for me, my wife Dañel Malán, and our colleagues at Milagro, establishing our artistic home in Portland, Oregon, has afforded creative and community-building opportunities we might not have had if we’d settled in Texas, California, or some other state with a …

The art trade broadly, and art criticism more specifically, badly need a Reformation. The institutions of art are too much like the medieval Catholic Church.
Just as the Church has always been run by a tiny group of white men who have the power to determine what is worthwhile and what is not, the art trade’s tiny group of “influencers”—gallerists, managers, a few artists, high-end high-visibility …

Who gets to design the future of life?
This is a question that we posed recently at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, where I am very proud to work. Focusing on inquiry and our promise to be the creative home for civic action, we invited people—artists, designers, planners, and more—to discuss and debate that question. And by gathering diverse perspectives around this …

You’ve probably never heard of the Air Resources Laboratory. I hadn’t until two years ago, when I was hired to preserve a trove of oral histories recorded in the early 1990s. Those audio cassettes held a history of hidden science, full of amazing stories about nuclear explosions, air pollution, and volcanoes. I encountered scientists whose research had strengthened national security, improved emergency response, and protected …

Recently, as I was walking home and mulling over what to write for this essay on arts engagement, I saw a multi-colored pinwheel stuck to a signpost on a street corner, titled “Hidden Fortune Wheel.” Underneath, a sign gave the following instructions:
Spin the wheel until it stops. For the next ten minutes try to feel what it would be like to be in someone …

Even a few years ago, galleries and museums that showcased their collections via Instagram were a minority. Now Instagram is ubiquitous. Cellphone cameras have officially replaced sketching among museum-goers. Social media mediates everything. And many art institutions have acknowledged the role of social media as a key aspect of audience engagement. To shape that role, art engagement, branding, and promotion all deserve a thorough …

Night falls. A crowd assembles. A kaleidoscope of exploding colors and noise entertains us to the sound of oohs and aahs. All around the world, throughout the year, fireworks dazzle, as pyrotechnic performers create a wide assortment of patterns in the dark sky—from starbursts to smiley faces. Fireworks mostly seem to be a matter of beauty and awe. But in previous eras, fireworks had a …

The sun rises above Sofia’s skies. It seems like an ordinary day in 2011. But as people pass near the centrally-situated Sofia University, they forget their hurry and come to a halt.
They can’t help staring at a weird explosion of colors, vaguely reminiscent of a bronze sculpture they have seen before. The Monument to the Soviet Army, erected in 1954 in gratitude for the Red …