Music Credit: “NY” composed and performed by Kosta T from the cd Soul Sand, used courtesy of the Free Music Archive.

Anita Fields:  I started thinking about all of the mentors that I've had, all of my teachers, all of the people who shared their skills and their knowledge. But most importantly they taught me how to create-- how to connect my hands to my heart, to my mind, to be able to make an expression. And they gave me the confidence to do that.

Jo Reed: That is Osage ribbon worker and multi-media artist Anita Fields sharing the thoughts she had when she learned she was named a 2021 National Heritage Fellow. And this is Art Works, the weekly podcast from the National Endowment for the Arts. I’m Josephine Reed.

Born in Oklahoma, Anita Fields, a citizen of Osage nation, is a renowned textile and clay artist. Her art reflects the world view of Osage philosophy and its connection to nature as it explores the complexities of Native history and culture. Native American ribbon work is colorful, precise, and complex. It’s the cutting, folding, and sewing of different colored ribbons into geometric patterns—it’s a form of applique and used as a decorative overlay, especially in ceremonial clothing.  The style of Osage ribbon work is unique and Anita Fields is an exemplar of the art form. An innovative artist, she honors the tradition while taking it to new places—drawing on the designs of ribbon work and incorporating them in her ceramic and clay pieces for example.  She is inspired by the Osage culture and inventively incorporates some its visual language into her art. Anita textiles and clay art pieces have been exhibited nationally and internationally—her art is part of the permanent collections at The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, the Museum of Art and Design in New York and the Minneapolis Institute of Art. A Tulsa Artist Fellow since 2017, her work was also part of the landmark 2019/2020 traveling exhibition, Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists. 

While Anita Fields was named a National Heritage Fellow for her outstanding Osage ribbon work. She clearly is a multi-media artist equally at home with clay as well as textiles. And that’s where I began my conservation: by asking her about navigating these two very different mediums--textiles and clay-- and the innovative ways her art frequently brings them together.

Anita Fields:  My work as an artist is multidisciplinary and I work in several forms, several mediums, primarily clay and textiles and the combination of the two. My background comes from very early childhood of learning how to sew when I was really young, asking my grandmother to teach me how to sew, but also, just creative play, playing outside with natural materials, dirt, mud, rocks, sticks, those are my earliest memories of creating. So, as an artist, I feel free to go in and out of materials and so, my practice covers a lot of materials, kind of whatever I feel is comfortable and what needs to be in the piece, but yeah, a lot of my work, my clay work is found in museums, galleries, collections, as well as my textile work too.

Jo Reed: I know you were born in Oklahoma. Were you raised there?

Anita Fields: We lived in Oklahoma until I was about eight to ten years old. I was born in Hominy, Oklahoma on the Osage reservation. My dad built us a home on his grandfather’s allotment, original allotment and we moved to Colorado. We made this kind of journey back and forth from Colorado back and forth to Hominy until we settled in Denver, Colorado. My dad was there and he wanted to be a guide and outfitter, which he accomplished and so, there was this back and forth journey for a couple of years because my mother was lonesome, but we always came home and stayed with our grandparents, our grandmothers during the summer. Yeah. It was a trek that we made many, many times during the year.

Jo Reed:  Your father was a painter and as you said, your grandmother was a great seamstress. So, I would have to imagine that art and appreciation for visual languages was something that you really grew up with.

Anita Fields: It was. My earliest memories, really, of pattern and design come from the trunks that my grandmother had that held her most prized possessions, which were our Osage traditional clothing and she would open those up when it was time for our dances and for our ceremonials and she would lovingly take each item out and kind of assign what relative would be wearing what, what cousin, what brother or sister and as an adult, I realized that was really my introduction to something finely and beautifully made with love and integrity, which held all of the basic principles of art, which are pattern, design, color and my dad was a painter and he painted wildlife scenes and he was really good. He didn’t have a lot of formal training, but he really enjoyed it and his passion showed in his paintings.

Jo Reed: As you said, your grandmother taught you to sew. This is random, but do you remember the first thing you made?

Anita Fields: Oh, I do. Yeah. So, my grandmother was a great seamstress and she had these baskets full of scraps of fabric and she would just throw them in there and I would kind of play around with those. So, one day, I asked her and said “Teach me how to sew.” So, she taught me with a needle and thread, first of all, you know, how to sew and encouraged me to do that for quite a while and I had this crazy cheap rubber doll from the dime store and she was probably only about five or six inches high and so, I made her a gingham-- it was blue gingham-- I can picture it right now-- blue gingham coat. I went into my grandmother’s bathroom and she had this little glass container of cotton balls, pulled out some of those cotton balls and glued them on to the cuffs and to the collar of the coat and it’s funny. I don’t remember a whole lot of clothing that I made for that doll after that, but that memory is really vivid to me.

Jo Reed: You ended up going to the Institute of American Indian Arts and you went to study painting, but there, you discovered other media. Tell me about the experience of being there.

Anita Fields: Okay. At the Institute of American Indian Arts, we were encouraged to try every medium that was available to us and at that time, I had very little experience with other mediums other than the ones that I was introduced to in high school or that I had found on my own. So, we were highly encouraged to try a little bit of everything hoping that we would land in a place where our passion was really at. So, that was my first introduction to clay and to multimedia and I felt like clay was-- that I was home, that I was very comfortable with it. It felt very intuitive to me to be working with it, that it’s just something that’s very easy to form, manipulate. It’s very human-like. It has a memory. For instance, if you roll out a piece of clay and you crack it and you repair it, it’s going to kind of remember that place where it was torn or it had been repaired. Yeah. It has lots of characteristics. It can be forgiving, it can be easily transformed. That’s one of the things that I really am drawn to by working with clay is that it’s a very transformative material to work with and, of course, it’s the earth that holds us up, provides everything for us.

Jo Reed: You were at the Institute of American Indian Arts at a really interesting time. Things were really breaking up and breaking out when you were a student there, correct?

Anita Fields: Yes. Yeah. There was lots of things happening in the world at that time and there was-- like this time when there was civil unrest and also, for native people, that is during the time that Wounded Knee was happening and protests were popping up on native reservations, on Indian land. So, there was a lot happening and that filtered through to the kind of work that people were doing at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Jo Reed: Yeah, I would think. You met your husband in Santa Fe and he’s a photographer, whose work is really pretty fabulous.

Anita Fields: Right.

Jo Reed: You got married and began having children. Did you return to Oklahoma then? Did you stay in Santa Fe? Just geographically, where were you situated at that time?

Anita Fields: Came back to Oklahoma.

Jo Reed: Okay. Here’s the question. How did you juggle making art and being a young mother?

Anita Fields: That’s a great question because it was really difficult. I found myself wanting to continue to create and so, I would always try to find a community center, a junior college. Sometimes I just enrolled in classes to be able to have a studio to go to work at, always taking classes to further my practice in finding new ways to be able to create. But it’s hard because having little children, there’s little time left for that kind of thing. So, it was definitely a juggling act that went on for quite some time, but luckily, I always found the time to be able to satisfy that urge to be able to make something and to be able to create.

Jo Reed: Is this when you began to learn ribbon work or had your grandmother taught you some of the aspects of it previously?

Anita Fields: My grandmother did not teach me some of the aspects of ribbon work. So, when I was pregnant with my daughter, my husband worked for the Osage Nation. He’s not Osage, but he worked for my nation and so, they held classes at the Osage Museum for ribbon work, shirt making, Indian dyes, a lot of the cultural items that we use and make within our culture. So, these classes were free and they would provide all of the materials and had great mentors, great teachers who were very knowledgeable, who were skillful, who were masters at what they did and they were very generous in sharing that with the people who had interest in learning how to make these things. So, they would begin with kind of the simpler designs and encourage you to keep working up to the more difficult stages of making these items.

Jo Reed: Well, I saw a YouTube video of you making a ribbon and it is an immensely complicated process. Do you think it’s something that you can describe so even though we’re listening to it we can kind of see it in our mind’s eye?

Anita Fields: I’ll try.

Jo Reed: I know it’s asking a lot.

Anita Fields: We use all kinds of ribbons. Depending on what pattern you’re going to work on, if you’re working on like a four-ribbon pattern, the ribbons, perhaps, might be two to three inches wide and you would sew those two down the middle to create a seam, open those up. You would baste on top two other ribbons that are of contrasting colors. You would take a design-- for us, Osages are known for their patterns that are geometric-- and you would trace your pattern on one side. You would flip that pattern to go on top of the ribbon on the other side and then this is a process of cutting and folding under those top ribbons. When you fold those under, when you snip and fold those ribbons under, the two colors that are underneath those top colors create the design and so, then depending on what it’s going to be for, if it’s going to be for a woman’s skirt or a man’s blanket-- it just depends what it’s going to be for-- would be how long that pattern needs to travel.

Jo Reed: I saw that in my head. So, that was good.

Anita Fields: I was like-- I don't know if this will make sense or not, but it’s definitely visual.

Jo Reed: So, they’re used for skirts or for blankets-- decorative items that people would wear?

Anita Fields: Sure. So, they decorate the traditional clothing that we wear and they trim women’s skirts and women have traditional Osage women blankets. So, they also would be added to those. Osage men have a blanket that they wear and then that can be also the border for those blankets. The suits that men wear for the traditional dances are trimmed, the men’s bridge clothes and their leggings, all of that is trimmed with ribbon work.

Jo Reed: And the designs have meanings. I mean, there’s significance to the patterns that are used. Is that correct?

Anita Fields: Yes, they do and some of them are easily identifiable, like the double arrow pattern. There’s different patterns that have evolved. There are patterns that at one time denoted clans or belonged to families and depending on how you were taught and who introduced you to ribbon work, some of those names are going to vary a little bit.

Jo Reed: You’ve said that your artwork is really guided by Osage philosophy and duality has a centrality in the philosophy and in your work. Can you share a little bit more about that philosophy and then how you manifest it through your art?

Anita Fields: So, I’m looking into the worldview of Osage, of our culture and that is a worldview that is based on observation of nature. There is an order found within nature and so, our worldview thinks of divisions between the early and sky and so, they found that to be true in everything that happened within one’s life. So, this idea of earth/sky, night/day, man/woman, really these contrasts and these things that you find in everyday life in one’s time here, in one’s journey. And so, for instance, things like the movement of the sun, that is something that happens every single day and that it has a path and it has order and there’s order found in nature on this observation of nature where everything is interconnected and things rely on one another to exist.

Jo Reed: Okay. You had said that you really came to a decision that art is what you’re going to do. You really just committed yourself to art. Can you tell me about that moment and what shifted for you when you made that decision moving forward?

Anita Fields: I was young. Well, actually, I wasn’t that young. Yeah. It was very distinct. It was very direct and I was at a time in my life when I was having a lot of difficulty in deciding what was true for myself, what it is, what was it that I needed to be doing, doing things that weren’t really healthy for me, partaking in those kinds of activities and I was really looking at something to ground myself and to really find out what it is I was supposed to be doing for the rest of my life and so, I knew that making art was part of that. I knew I was having a difficult time attaining that because all of these other things that were happening in my life and so, I just really made a commitment to be able to honor my time here and begin doing what I was supposed to be doing and that really was the shift because I think it was the shift in my heart and my mind, alerting my hands that this is what I was going to be doing and I fully committed right then and there.

Jo Reed: Were you working in both textiles and clay then?

Anita Fields: More so in clay at that time.

Jo Reed: When I think about working with clay-- and this is everything to do with me and being limited-- I tend to think of things being functional, making things that are beautiful, but functional. You make things that tell stories. That is a qualitative difference. Can you tell me how you arrived at that?

Anita Fields: That was actually what that shift that I’m talking about because up to that point, I did make things that were utilitarian, throwing on the wheel. I still throw on the wheel because I can alter things to fit the ideas that I’m having when I’m making these things that are more narrative, but up to that time, that’s pretty much what I was doing. I was making things that were utilitarian, that you can use. It was when I made that shift in my mind that I decided to tell things that were-- I call them narrative. They’re pieces that are narrative in nature. I can be inspired by lots of things. I can be inspired by a good book. I love poetry. I can be inspired by poetry. Many times before I begin a body of work, I’ll just sit and read poetry. I can be inspired by something that I see at a social gathering with Osage people. I can be inspired by the kinds of things I was talking about earlier that is found in our world view. For instance, I make these landscapes and they’re abstract in nature, but to me, being able to travel to our Osage original homelands, which I had been fortunate enough to be able to do brought this feeling that the earth holds memory and that it holds the memory of the cultures who were first there and because of the way that clay is created, that erosion, time, layering. I think of all those kinds of things and clay holds this memory. So, it’s the perfect material to transform these kinds of ideas. So, yeah, it was definitely a shift with what I was talking about earlier.

Jo Reed: Well, it’s so interesting because you’ve made every-day objects with clay but in the service of telling a story and an example is your 2001 installation. In English, it’s called “Call to Eat.” I’m not going to attempt the Osage pronunciation but there you created a table set for dinner ready for a family or a party. Can you describe that installation and what you were doing and how that’s part of your philosophy of work?

Anita Fields: So, that piece is called “Wa-No'-Bree” and that’s the Osage word for “Come and eat,” the call to eat and so, this is particularly about Osage dinners and the sharing of food. We don’t do anything without the inclusion of food. As Osage people, we gather at that table in all of these instances from the celebration of a marriage, sending a soldier off to war, welcoming him home. It would be naming babies. It would also be saying goodbye to somebody on their final journey home. Every aspect of our lives, from birth to death, you gather people together to come and share this food with you as an expression of who we are. And I find so many things within our culture so very beautiful, and I’m always looking for the essence of what’s happening within these experiences and these times.So, in that particular piece, kind of based on memory when I was a young girl then I was thinking about the dinners when I was particularly a young person going to them with my grandmother. So, I used her dishes that she had, as many as I had left, and I press-molded the clay into her dishes so that they were actually the dishes that my grandmother used and then I used Osage designs on linen napkins and imagery that would reflect us and I know I took my tape recorder to a dinner and after the prayer, I told my relatives who I was sitting with what I was doing, that I was making this art installation and that I just wanted to record the noise that was happening around us and so, I put out my tape recorder and then everybody was quiet. I wasn't trying to intimidate. I was just trying to gather you know what it sounds like at a dinner.  And because a lot of these dinners, they don’t happen inside of a building. They happen outside under a tent. then I think I remember that the installation included, you know, limbs and trees and a scrim, you know, to give us the idea of being in nature.

Jo Reed: And you also had real fry bread.

Anita Fields: I did have real fry bread. I forgot about that. Yeah. I had real fry bread that I dipped in polyurethane about 10 times.

Jo Reed: Sometimes you take details from your ribbon work, and you recreate them in clay.

Anita Fields: So, for a long time, you know, I was just trying to replicate ribbon work on to clay like the surface, you know, when I would think about surface decoration, and it just wasn't working. For me it just wasn't happening. It didn't hold the kind of nuances that I wanted. And I thought, well, ribbon work is ribbon work. And this clay is the clay and the surface, they’re two totally different things. And then I thought about, well, I could take my patterns and impress them in the clay and make clay stamps. And then I could use those stamps to develop textures on the surfaces of my clay. So I would take bits of clay and flatten them out and then impress the clay stamps of ribbon work into them. And then just, you know, I call it's kind of like a clay collage for me, where I take these fragments of clay, stamp the texture into them and then apply that with slip to the surface of my clay forms. And I really I like that. You know? That worked for me because it was just a layer again, you know, of these languages that I have developed as an artist. And I think of that, you know, directly as that. It's a language that I have developed for myself because, you know, the ribbon work patterns aren't the only thing. I use all kinds of different objects to impress into clay to make stamps and they can be from a walk. They can be from travel that I've had. They can be a favorite pair of earrings. They can be, you know, beadwork. So, I think of it as a language, you know, that as an artist that I have developed that tells the story of my journey. But I also think of it, you know, as the language that this is the language as an artist that I have chosen.  Just as, you know, when I was a really young girl remembering the language that I remember my grandmother and all her relatives and peers, you know, speaking Osage as their first language.

Jo Reed: I'd like to talk about the exhibit Fluent Generations which was a show with work by you, and your husband who's a photographer, and your son who's a painter. And I can only imagine what that experience was like for your family.

Anita Fields: It was, first of all, a great honor to be able to show with them. And, you know, we don't really as a family sit-down and-- well, we do talk about art quite a bit. But we don't really talk about how we influence each other because that's just how we live our lives. We don't really have conversations about the relationship of my work to my husband's work or my work to Yatika’s work. Yeah. I try to stay out of the creative aspects of when somebody's making something about  what your opinion of it is because we know that that's a real solitary decision that has to be made by the person who's doing it. We think of it more in like, just real general terms, that we raised our children to understand this language of art, not to be intimidated by it. That this is very natural. And so, that exhibit we had to really kind of slow it down and really start thinking about those things because people started asking us those questions. And you know I thought about it and thought well we just wanted to give our children a lot of experiences to be comfortable in the creative aspects of life and to feel comfortable with it. And if that is the path that they chose then that's great, because we, as a family, all understand that it's a language that we do understand and deeply, deeply appreciate, and know its importance, you know, in our lives and in other people's lives, how important it is in culture.

Jo Reed: I wonder when you see your work in a gallery or a museum, is it like seeing it with fresh eyes? Is it seeing it anew in some ways?

Anita Fields:  It is. And it's, you know, it's one thing to see it in a beautifully lit gallery, a beautifully lit space, you know, with lots of light and plenty of room around it. As to seeing it on the table that you're creating it on, you know, or taking it out of the kiln or, you know, putting it under a sewing machine, you know, that's one thing. But yeah, when you are able to see it, you know, properly presented, it takes on a whole different air. I think more than anything when I'm able to see a piece I haven't made in a few years, you know, and I'm able to revisit that that is sometimes when I have these kind of really surprises. And then, you know, start thinking about oh I kind of remember that time and I think I'm seeing you know this in it where I wasn't really consciously thinking of that when I made that. You know? So that kind of realization oftentimes comes later.

Jo Reed: There was a large important path-breaking exhibit that you were a part of called Hearts of Our People, Native, Women Artists. And you created an installation for it called It's In Our DNA. It's Who We Are. And I would really like you to describe this for us. And beginning with how you begin a project like that. How you begin to conceptualize it.  Where do you start?

Anita Fields: So, I've been wanting to make a contemporary Osage wedding coat for quite some time. And I started that with my daughter, a couple of years earlier. We started one. And then the opportunity came a commission from, you know, the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts for the show “Hearts of Our People”. And proposed making the wedding coat-- another wedding coat. So, you know, the wedding coat is based on a military style jacket that has history and that is an iconic piece of clothing for Osage people. They made their way into our culture in the very late 1700s at a time when, you know, we were negotiating with foreign powers including the United States with treaties. And they were given as gifts by these foreign powers to our chiefs. And they made their way back and so that they were given to the women.  And the women incorporated them into to the wedding ceremony but it's not just a wedding ceremony. These marriages were arranged marriages between two clans. until the ‘50s actually, the late ‘50s, you know, there were still a few arranged marriages happening. And when that was no longer happening, the Osage the wedding coat found its way into our ceremonial dance, called the I’n-Lon-Schka Dance which is a man's dance. And so, they are used as a way of gift-giving, from one drum keeper’s family to the next drum keeper’s family and committee. And, you know, my initial thoughts were that this is such an iconic item for Osage people that I think of it as holding this history, this really important history of who we are. And so I wanted to make a contemporary Osage wedding coat because I felt like it's the thread, you know, it's one of the items that links the past to now and on into the future. But I wanted my wedding coat to be something that was reflective of that kind of history. So on the inside it has a silk lining that that has been set up with Photoshop images.  And these images are everything from historic documents, photos of relatives. The idea of our creation story, there's images from that. Also, there's oil wells on it because, you know, oil has impacted our culture, you know, in a huge way, the economics of our culture. And so all of these images speak to who we are as Osage people. And then, you know, it's embellished on the sleeves with ribbon work panels and different items that we use as Osage people, metal dots, embroidery.  Most always the panels on the front of these wedding coats are embroidered. And so I wanted to hand embroider with symbols that are reflective, again of our history and with plants that were and are important to us. I wanted it to be a reflection of all of those things and pay homage to the Osage people that I know who sew all year round so that our culture can continue.

Jo Reed: It's stunning. It's just stunning.

Anita Fields: Thank you.

Jo Reed: I wonder now, Anita as you reflect upon your career and what you've done so far, whether there's a through line that's going through it and what that through line might be. Or another way is, you know, are there stories that you find yourself returning to again and again that you tell through your work?

Anita Fields: Well, this idea of transformation I think is something that I think about a lot whether I'm working in fabric textiles printing on cloth, or making a form out of clay. Because it's this overriding idea that the idea of transformation is bigger than just transforming a material. You know? Because when I look at clothing I think of it.… for instance, when you put your Osage clothing on you are able to connect with who you are. And so this transformation happens, not only physically outwardly, but it's something that is a transformation of your heart and your spirit and your mind.  And a reflection of where you come from because you're wearing the same type of clothing that your ancestors wore. I think of transformation a lot in my work in all of the disciplines that I work in.

Jo Reed: And finally, Anita, what did it mean for you to be named a 2021 National Heritage fellow?

Anita Fields: You know that I'm still soaking that all in actually. Of course, I’m really honored. But you know what it took me to thinking about the whole journey, the whole beginning of creating, making. And I started thinking about all of the mentors that I've had, all of my teachers, all of the people who shared their skills and their knowledge. But most importantly they taught me how to create-- how to connect my hands to my heart, to my mind, to be able to make an expression. And they gave me the confidence to do that. They gave me the understanding of there's no right way to make something, there's no wrong way to make something. There's only the way that you feel is the most expressive for you.  And I am forever grateful for that.

Jo Reed: And Anita, I think that is a really good place to leave it. Thank you so much for giving me your time because I know you're very busy. And congratulations again on this well-deserved award for your wonderful, wonderful work.

Anita Fields: Thank you. I really appreciate being able to talk to you.

Jo Reed: Thank you.

That was Anita Fields—an Osage ribbon worker, multi-media artist and 2021 National Heritage Fellow which is the nation’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.  You’ve been listening to Art Works produced at the National Endowment for Arts. I’m Josephine Reed. Stay safe and thanks for listening.

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Anita Fields: It was. My earliest memories, really, of pattern and design come from the trunks that my grandmother had that held her most prized possessions, which were our Osage traditional clothing and she would open those up when it was time for our dances and for our ceremonials and she would take out-- lovingly take each item out and kind of assign what relative would be wearing what, what cousin, what brother or sister and as an adult, I realized that was really my introduction to something finely and beautifully made with love and integrity, which held all of the basic principles of art, which are pattern, design, color.

Music Credit: “NY” composed and performed by Kosta T from the cd Soul Sand, used courtesy of the Free Music Archive.

CJ Hunt: In New Orleans, the neutral ground, that grassy median between two streets, is where people meet up to barbecue and be with their neighbors and catch beads and eat King Cake for Mardi Gras. It is a community space. It is also where the Confederacy chose to build all of its monuments. So the film is asking this question, what does it mean that the public space, intended for all of us, is literally occupied by 150-year-old army who fought to keep the majority of this city in chains?

Jo Reed:  That is filmmaker and writer CJ Hunt talking about his documentary The Neutral Ground and this is Art Works the weekly podcast from the National Endowment for the Arts—I’m Josephine Reed.

On July 10 of this year, the city of Charlottesville, Va., finally removed the statues of Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson that were the focus of the deadly 2017 rally in which one woman was killed and dozens of others were injured.

Filmmaker CJ Hunt was at that rally.  He had spent years documenting the fight over removing four confederate monuments in New Orleans. A comedian and writer, CJ Hunt’s original thought was to make a short, satirical YouTube video—but that shifted as a bigger and more profound story became apparent. The result is a documentary called The Neutral Ground—a personal, disturbing, sometimes-funny, and informative exploration of the struggle over the monuments in New Orleans. But more broadly, the film, an official selection of the both the Tribeca Film Festival and AFI Docs, is an examination of collective memory, the myths of the confederacy, how history was re-written and reaffirmed, and the price paid, especially by Black people, to keep the story of “Lost Cause” alive.  I spoke with CJ Hunt at the beginning of July, before the statues came down in Charlottesville—Here’s our conversation.

Jo Reed: First of all, CJ Hunt, thank you for giving me your time. I saw your film, The Neutral Ground, at Tribeca and at AFI doc fest, and what a film.

CJ Hunt: I'm so honored to be here, thank you so much.

Jo Reed: You're welcome. Tell me just a little bit-- give me the thumbnail, the log-line, of "The Neutral Ground." And then, I want you to talk about how it came together and the whole thing.

CJ Hunt: Sure. So, I say that The Neutral Ground is a documentary about memory, monuments, and how to break up with the Confederacy. And I say that as both a, you know, a serious investigation and as someone who's a comedian. You know, I think the analogy works. I think we all, in our personal lives, have relationships that we fail to be honest about. Relationships in our past where we're like, actually, that ex was pretty good, and actually, it's totally normal that I kept all their stuff. And it's totally normal that I've kept all of their stuff and it's in the middle of the living room and my new partners are not weirded out about it at all. And I think that is what has happened with the Confederacy. That you cannot name another war where the losers have been able to erect thousands of monuments to themselves. And where they have been able to stay around so long that people forget that those who built them were just putting up a version of a story, and this is not all of our collective history that we do not have the right to question or to move.

Jo Reed: Amen to that. it's extraordinary to me. The adage is, history is written by the winners.

CJ Hunt: I mean, it is-- it's dark to think about, but it makes one raise the question, did the Confederacy lose?  On paper, of course they lost. But shortly after, they had the power to build thousands of monuments to themselves? And these folks, then, became the governors and mayors and state Supreme Court justices of all of these towns, the secessionists who were just fighting the government and lynching people and whose vigilante violence undid Reconstruction were allowed to take their seats in Congress? So I think the old adage falls apart here, when you realize that the ex-Confederates, the white supremacists who seceded from the nation and wrote down on paper, we're doing this to protect slavery, those people may have lost the war, but they absolutely won the peace and they won the nation and they won our national memory.

Jo Reed: You open your film, The Neutral Ground, with the public meetings in New Orleans about taking down four Confederate monuments, and that really sets the stage for your film. Now, when you were there filming, did you have a sense of what was going to unfold? What were your thoughts, walking into that meeting?

 CJ Hunt: So, it was 2015. I had moved to New Orleans in 2007 to become a teacher, and by 2015 I was living and working a lot as a comedian. But we were in this really harrowing moment where we had all just seen a white supremacist walk into Emanuel AME Church in Charleston and murder nine Black churchgoers. And we had seen his white supremacist manifesto surface online. And we had seen pictures of him holding guns and the Confederate flag. And we were at a moment where, even after that, lawmakers were on the floor saying that the flag of the Confederacy still belonged over the capitol in South Carolina. So that desire to hold onto the Confederacy in the face of white supremacist violence, in the face of, you know, truth, was what interested me. And, you know, as that fight moved to New Orleans, and that summer, organizers who became Take 'Em Down NOLA were already burning Confederate flags and marching and pushing the Mayor to take these four monuments down, that when the city had these hearings you saw the same sort of resistance and holding onto the past and inability to move forward of white New Orleanians getting up one after the other and saying this was not about slavery, the Civil War wasn't about slavery, and actually, slavery wasn't that bad, and the real thing we need to talk about is how the first slave owners were Black in Africa, and actually, the real thing we need to talk about are the Black thugs beating up tourists in the city. So it was a moment where the veil of propriety and civility around what people don't say had slipped, and people were just saying a level of open racist myths, that it was like, oh my god, they are saying this out loud. So I started rolling camera to try to capture that moment in history.

Jo Reed: And your thought, at that time, was to make a short, comic YouTube video .

CJ Hunt: Yeah. I mean, if someone had said, hey, the issue that you're filming right now, this fight over how hard some folks are going to hang onto these four objects-- if someone had said, filming those is going to take you down a path where you are going to see Charlottesville and white terrorists take lives --   also see some of those same people  attack the Capitol, I don't think I would have embarked on that journey, and I certainly wouldn't have tried to make it a comedy. We didn't know any of those things were coming, but the fact that, you know, the question we were asking, like what comes up from the ground when you pull on a Confederate monument, we learned the answer to that over the six years that we were making, and the answer, I think, is pretty harrowing.

Jo Reed: Well, it was-- even as people are insisting this is-- they are not about white supremacy, and that was certainly the argument in New Orleans, where one of them is literally a monument to the White League--

CJ Hunt: Yeah, it's like, have you read it? Have you-- in 1932, this monument actually received an inscription that shouted out the words "white supremacy." It was literally inscribed on a monument dedicated to an organization called the White League whose whole goal was to teach Blacks to beware of further insolence. These guys attacked the government. These guys are the original capitol rioters. They had killed police in the streets, they held the New Orleans state government for three days, I mean-- and then they escaped punishment and one of them became Mayor, and one of them became a state Supreme Court justice, and together, they unveiled the Lee Monument.

Jo Reed: You know, in so many ways, I think your film is about the way history is made, how it's created. And the mythology around the Confederacy, which is now perceived as fact, is a pretty transparent case study of this.

CJ Hunt: I think, you know, this film is not just about the Confederacy and the lie of the lost cause. This film is about what we think history is. You know, for most of us, history is not based in any primary sources, you know? The kids I knew and grew up with were not like, let's get hyped for documents. You know, most of us, what we think of history is the stories we were passed. And I think a lot of us grew up with stories that didn't make sense, and the Confederacy, you're absolutely right, is just a case study of states rights, great, which specific rights? Don't worry about it, just the principle of states rights. Yeah, yeah, but it's plural? Is there anything besides slavery? No, it wasn't about slavery. Well, then, why do you guys keep talking about slavery? Like there are things that never made sense about that story, and I think, through comedy, they come through in this film.

Jo Reed: Well, you decided to insert yourself into the film along the way.

CJ Hunt: Yes.

Jo Reed: Yeah, tell me about that decision and the various ways you did that.

CJ Hunt: Yeah. At the time, I was not trying to be a filmmaker, you know? In 2015, I was trying to be a comedy writer, a late night writer. So I didn't watch a ton of documentary, I wasn't thinking about how documentaries are made. I was just like, I want to go roast and make jokes about people who want to say out loud that slavery was not that bad. The only visual language I have a reference for is late night television. So I know that I need to dress up in a suit, I know that I need to get a handheld microphone, and I need to write some jokes. And so, that's how this started. If I could do it again, I probably wouldn't put myself on screen, and I'd probably figure out, you know, a way to just be behind the camera and a little bit freer. But because we started out on that path, it was kind of like, all right, CJ, you have to stay on screen for this whole time, you have to wear the same blue shirt and red tie for six years, and you have to figure out a way to get past like superficial little jokes like "would you keep P.G.T. Beauregard if we took the Confederate off and just kept the horse? Is just the horse fine for you? Just like a little set of jokes, but we had to figure out, if I'm going to be on screen, what is the truth that I'm telling about myself, about my family, about how I view history, about how I am still under the grip of whiteness. And that's what the film became.

Jo Reed: Well, your father plays a small but very pivotal role in the film--

CJ Hunt: Thanks.

Jo Reed: And the give and take between you two is both eye-opening and at times very funny, and it's that combination, I think, that can open people up to hear things.

CJ Hunt: Yeah, I think it's both of them, right? if I didn't appear on camera, and I was just like, “Welcome to the film, now, let's talk about white supremacy. Here are the documents. Here is the footage.” You know, there's a way that that can be overwhelming. But it's not that we're putting sugar in the medicine, but we're just changing the language with which we have the convo. You know, the language is just you spending 82 minutes watching a character who is me stumbling his way through this mystery, you know? Through this mystery of how I came to see the world, of how Confederate monuments moved from graveyards to dominate our public spaces, this mystery about how, you know, the United Daughters of the Confederacy literally rewrote history and inserted a version of propaganda into textbooks that we still believe is history, you know? You are just watching me make mistakes and stumble and grow and find myself. And I think that that is ultimately a more engaging viewing experience, and allows people the grace to change their opinions than if I, as the filmmaker, was just like, look at the documents, look at what you did.  And I think that relationship with my dad, I think people recognize that, you know? I have Jewish friends who are like, yes, my dad is the same. He talks about look what was done to the ancestors. And I think, for some white audiences, it is-- they're not only laughing at something recognizable, which is a father who's just dunking on his kid's version of the story, of like, that's not at all what happened-- it's funny, but I also think it's giving white viewers something that they've maybe never seen before, which was a look at how Black parents need to talk to their kids in order for those kids to stay healthy and alive in this country. So, in one minute you're laughing, and at the other minute you're like, yes, if you're a Black parent you have to have that convo with your kids about what this country's done to Black people so that they can survive.

Jo Reed: And also it's a micro version of the macro story you're telling.  Where you have your version of history, and your father is, no, no, that's not what happened.

CJ Hunt: Yeah, I mean, you know, James Baldwin is a really big fan of saying, if you want to talk about the truth about America, you have to talk about the truth about yourself. So it was a fun way to start the film, a film that is about myth, a film that is about the stories that we misremember, by me telling a story that I tell myself, and my dad myth-busting on it and being like, that's not actually what happened.

Jo Reed: Yeah, being schooled.

CJ Hunt: Yeah, getting schooled.

Jo Reed: During the filming you participated in a Civil War reenactment, which, I have to say as a viewer, I found kind of surprising.

CJ Hunt: Yeah.

Jo Reed: Tell me why you decided you were actually going to participate, and what did you want from it? What were you looking for?

CJ Hunt: What am I looking for? What am I looking for? I think, in the film, it was important not to just condemn a set of beliefs about the Confederacy, which is easy and which makes sense to me and which, you know, a lot of think pieces were doing. But we needed to explore it. We needed to give examination to the lie, for everyone to see how rickety it is, and how, internally, it doesn't make sense, you know? That it is strange that the same people who say, this wasn't about slavery, also want to say, but also slavery was not that bad. You know, those things don't make sense. It's like if your friend was like, my wife divorced me and it had nothing to do with cheating. On an unrelated note, cheating's not that bad. You'd be like, Craig, what are we talking about? Just the pure amount that you are fixating on this, you know, shows the lie. So it was important for us to investigate that and show how rickety that is and what that lie is made of. We do that mainly through talking to the leader of the Louisiana Sons of Confederate Veterans, Thomas Taylor. But as a filmmaker, I was anxious that viewers would see this and go, you just found someone with extreme views. You just found some guy who says wild stuff. And it was important for me to go into Neo-Confederate spaces like the Civil War reenactment to show: this is not just one guy. This is not just a set of extremists. This is an entire culture, and this is how folks view their heritage and their past. And that this is both a terrifying space, if you are Black, but it is also a folksy, fun space. So I think it is not the same as the scene where we go to Charlottesville. I think, when you go to this Confederate reenactment, part of you is kind of having fun. You're worried for me, but you're like, ooh, they make chili and they're having a cookout and look at the kids. You know, I was there, and I was like, this reminds me of James Taylor concerts my parents took me to in Massachusetts. That you see that the lie of the lost cause is so sticky. It is so immovable because it masks itself in nostalgia. It becomes a platform that people build their memories on, so that when you say, hey, I want to talk about the truth of the Confederacy, people are going, I cannot do that, because you doing that threatens to undo all of my memories with my family, camping out and having this incredible time.

Jo Reed: We also have to say, you certainly don't just throw this on the South. You really talk about Northern complicity as well, and how the North was more than happy to promulgate this lovely, graceful culture, dripping with magnolias, in which Blacks were happy slaves and whites were benevolent owners.

CJ Hunt: The South-- the antebellum South was a terrifying, stinky, disgusting place where most white people were desperately poor because their leaders failed them, and almost all Black people were property who you could kill, sell, or rape at will, and the entire society revolved around the dehumanization of these people. And if you were a poor white, you definite-- you may not have owned a slave, but you definitely belonged on a slave patrol. And entire towns would go out and hunt these people down. If you were a poor white, you were being told, at the time of secession, oh, of course, you don't own slaves, but if these slaves are set free, they are coming for you. They are coming for your daughters. They are coming for an entire way of life. This was a terrifying place. And the only reason that we think that some people still think about it as this beautiful place of milk and magnolias, with the, you know, live oaks and the large porches and the iced tea-- the only reason we think about that is because white Southerners romanticize this and white Northerners made it our entertainment industry, made it pop culture. We all know that the film "Birth of a Nation" was responsible for the rebirth of the KKK. Where do we think "Birth of a Nation" was shot? We think that that was shot in the South? It was shot on a lot in LA. "Gone With The Wind," with the slave children dancing on the bells and, you know, Scarlett O'Hara's slave who just loves her so much. That was made in LA, and that has rewritten people's memory. Christy Coleman, in our film, who is the CEO of the American Civil War Museum says it. More people are familiar with pop culture than they are with history. And this is what the North made. This is who made Aunt Jemima. That was us in the North. And that is what we must reckon with.

Jo Reed: Well, your film is also very scholarly. As personal as it is, and humorous in moments, it's very scholarly in a kind of backhanded way. Like you're giving people information and we're taking it in without really realizing how much information you're handing out here.

CJ Hunt: We're sneaking it in. We're sneaking the scholars in. You think it's jokes, but we've got scholars.

Jo Reed: Boy, do you ever. And you talk to a lot of historians about the making of the history of the lost cause. And in terms of the statues that honor the Confederacy, you know, what stood out-- obviously, they were put up after Reconstruction, after a time when Black people had been able to assert their rights, and then erected near courthouses, for example, really as a show of power dynamics in a city or a town.

CJ Hunt: Yeah. It's one of my favorite parts of the film, but you can see a graph-- and this was-- the data comes from the Southern Poverty Law Center, we make it into this, I think, beautiful and harrowing graph. You can see these monuments built, year by year, you know? And these monuments aren't built in the 1860s, you know? The few monuments that were built right after the war were small monuments in cemeteries, because that's where you would go to mourn the dead. But we don't get giant monuments in public space, in the middle of towns, until 1884, with the erection of the Lee Monument in New Orleans, right? So there's this giant gap in between there. And when you look at what happened in that gap, it was Reconstruction, which was then undid by white supremacist violence. And if you look at just New Orleans, the two men who are, you know, on the record, unveiling this monument, are named Behan and Fenner. And Behan is the Mayor, and Fenner is a state Supreme Court justice who upheld Plessy versus Ferguson. And both of them, just a few years before, were attacking the New Orleans government and killing cops in the streets and trying to teach Black people a lesson. That is what these monuments are made of. That is who put these monuments up.  They are writing a story into our textbooks, they are writing Black oppression into the law with Jim Crow, and they are using the other hand to write that story literally into stone, into the landscape.

Jo Reed: And as we mentioned, with a big helping hand from their Northern brethren.

CJ Hunt: They are doing it-- they are doing it under the applause, with the funding of Northerners. Every one of these speeches has a section where they're like, we would like to welcome our Northern guests. And that is something that the North has written out of what we teach our children as well.

Jo Reed:  A few brass tacks here about making the film. Where did you get the money to make the film? How did you get funding?

CJ Hunt: For the first couple of years of this film, it was, you know, me and my producer, Darcy, just trying to grab pieces of our savings to-- you know, to give to our friends or our cameraman so that we can drive to Virginia. And then, once we had some pieces in place, once people could see the interview with my dad and some of our footage in Charlottesville, people could finally see the potential of the film, and that's when we started getting funders. You know, ITVS, who funds a lot of PBS, you know, incredible PBS projects, they came and gave us money. Firelight Media, who's an incredible, you know, group of filmmakers of color that I'm a part of and that is, you know, producing some of the best films out there—that’s Stanley Nelson, Loira Limbal, you know, Ashley O'Shay, like Cecilia Aldarondo, with her film "Landfall." You know, so many of the incredible films that you are going to see this year and films that you are still talking about from last year are from Firelight Media. They were some of our first backers. Our very first backer was the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation.  Before we really had anything, they could see what was happening for us. So,  as we figured out what our voice was, and as white supremacist violence got clearer and clearer,   it became clear for folks, the value of this story. So Southern Documentary Fund has backed us, New America has backed us, the Center for Asian American Media, CAAM, has backed us. Even though I only barely talk about being Filipino, for them, it was important, because for them, you know, they're like, “Look. this is a story about being mixed and figuring out your identity.” So I feel really lucky that we have been able to get the money we need to make this film and tell this story, because when you are editing concurrently and you are filming for six years, that has a price.

Jo Reed: Oh, god, does it ever. And I'm also curious about the editing process, which had to have been difficult.

CJ Hunt: I want everyone to look up the name Sultana Isham. She is our composer, who, you know, you feel her heart beat so much through this. And I also want you to look up the name Jane Geisler. And Jane Geisler is not on any of the socials, but you can find her, you know-- her portfolio, and good luck hiring her, because she's so busy now. But she was my other-- if Darcy McKinnon was my left hand in making this, Jane Geisler was my right hand. She is just such an incredible editor. And she helped me find this-- find our way through. She helped me skim out all of these parts that feel like late night, and push to find something true in who I am. She was my Northstar in being like, CJ, I know you are fighting for this silly, silly joke, where you think you're doing a slam-dunk on these Neo-Confederates, but that joke makes us not trust you, and that joke is you hiding your own fear. So, we need to privilege truth over you looking funny in this film.

Jo Reed: And the film is being distributed. That is a big deal—so people will have a chance to see it. It’s has been on POV, and is available for streaming on PBS. And you don’t need to be a member of PBS to be able to stream it, correct? It’s free until August 4^th?

CJ Hunt:  Yes! PBS brings all of these incredible documentaries to people for free. They don't even try to trick you with a, hey, do you want to put your credit card down now? They bring it to you for free because it's important to advance democracy through public media. It is literally as easy as going to Google and typing The Neutral Ground, PBS, and then you'll be able to see exactly where to stream it for free.

Jo Reed: And another reason to love PBS.  The film has multiple codas. The monuments come down in New Orleans, and here's a satisfying ending. But then, you and Aziz Abdul, who's this wonderful photographer, go to Charlottesville. What was it, a "Save Our Monuments" rally? "Save Our Statues"? You know, the rally.

CJ Hunt: Yeah, it was called "Unite The Right," and we remember it as oh, those tiki torch guys in Charlottesville. But we forget that they were there to thwart the democratic decision of the Charlottesville City Council to take down a monument of Robert E. Lee.

Jo Reed: And suddenly, in Charlottesville, it is a new ballgame of what is going on. I mean, if you want to talk about tearing off masks, whoa. That's lifting a rock. And you clearly look terrified, as you should have done. I would have been. But it really changes, in I think a very profound way, your film.

CJ Hunt: Yeah. I mean, I was deeply haunted by it, you know? It made it impossible to-- it made it impossible to end with a feel good ending of looking at the empty Robert E. Lee pedestal, because all of a sudden, we were in a-- you know, we were facing the same thing that I think Black legislators in Reconstruction were facing, where, in one moment, you think that we are in power, and the next, you were like, oh my god, I think we have turned a corner. I think we are losing, and I think white supremacy is going to win. And in the summer of 2017, you know, when these white supremacists were able to march, unmolested, through UVA campus, were able to beat people into a coma that night, and were then able to reassemble and march through Charlottesville and kill people in broad daylight, and when the President was then calling them "very fine people," that had a level of existential terror that far surpasses any physical terror that we had-- that me and Aziz had being there, marching with-- marching next to them. You know, I think that people play that footage over and over again, you know-- they've become a shorthand for what white supremacy looks like in this country. But what we have forgotten is that most of them went back to their lives working at Best Buy or hedge funds or wherever they work, but that that monument, to a slave owner, to a traitor, that the city had decided should come down in the summer of 2017, that that monument is still up. We're in July 2021, and that monument is still up.

Jo Reed: And then, of course, with May of 2020 and George Floyd's murder-- this is the other coda, along with marches and rallies-- the monuments to Confederates, to white supremacists, are being pulled down by people, outside of any kind of, you know, city hall or official channels. And that seems like a very important moment.

CJ Hunt: There was a time when the first thing you saw on screen in this film was going to be the sentence, "in the summer of 2015, there was an outrageous public act of white supremacist murder, and in response, people started asking questions about Confederate monuments." And you were going to see that same sentence over and over again. "In the summer of 2017, there was an outrageous, undeniable public act of white supremacist violence, and in response"-- "In the summer of 2020…, and I think the tragedy of this film is the fact that Black people have been trying to speak about the horror of public Confederate monuments since Frederick Douglass. You know, in the 1870s, he's like, what the hell is happening? How are we building a monument to Lee? But the only time the nation is able to tune into that radio frequency and actually hear us is when an incredible act of white supremacist violence has happened. So I think that is a tragedy.  But I think the thing that changed with the lynching of George Floyd was that people firmly stopped waiting for permission. This was trickling after Charlottesville. You know, we saw "Do It Like Durham" and folks pulling down statues, UNC pulling down statues after Charlottesville, but it became clear, after the murder of George Floyd, that we are no longer waiting. We are not waiting for police systems to change, and we are not waiting for city governments to, you know, have all the sign-offs to relocate a monument.  And it was important for us to capture that because the whole film so far had been about us waiting for permission to move these monuments, and that is a tectonic shift in how people think about freedom.

Jo Reed:    The title of your film, The Neutral Ground, describe what the neutral ground is.

CJ Hunt: Every city has a piece of grassy median between two streets, you know? And in some cities, you see someone spinning a sign there to tell you that Linens 'N Things is going out of business. But here, it is a community space. It has always been a community space, and it has always been, intentionally, a gathering place between different communities. In New Orleans, the neutral ground, that grassy median between two streets, is where people meet up to barbecue and be with their neighbors and catch beads and eat King Cake for Mardi Gras. It is a community space. It is also where the Confederacy chose to build all of its monuments. So the film is asking this question, what does it mean that the public space, intended for all of us, is literally occupied by 150-year-old army who fought to keep the majority of this city in chains?

Jo Reed: And I think that's a good place to leave it. CJ, thank you. It's a great film, and obviously an important one, so thank you for making it.

CJ Hunt: Thank you for giving us the time. And I say this not because I want social media followers, but because this is the easiest way to talk to us. If you know a teacher who would love this film, if you know a teacher who we should know about who does an incredible job at teaching the Civil War and Black freedom, you can find us on all the socials @itsnotneutral. Tell us about that teacher. Let's figure out how to get this film in your schools. Let's figure out what teachers we can be amplifying on our side. So thank you so much for making the space for us, and shout out to teachers.

Jo Reed: Excellent, and I share that shout out, thank you.

That was filmmaker CJ Hunt. We were talking about his documentary, The Neutral Ground. You can stream The Neutral Ground for free until August 4th at pov.org.

You’ve been listening to Art Works produced at the National Endowment for the Arts. I’m Josephine Reed—stay safe and thanks for listening.

CJ Hunt: I think if I didn't appear on camera, and I was just like, “Welcome to the film, now, let's talk about white supremacy. Here are the documents. Here is the footage.” You know, there's a way that that can be overwhelming. It's not that we're putting sugar in the medicine, but we're just changing the language with which we have the convo. You know, the language is just you spending 82 minutes watching a character who is me stumbling his way through this mystery. Through this mystery of how I came to see the world, of how Confederate monuments moved from graveyards to dominate our public spaces, this mystery about how the United Daughters of the Confederacy literally rewrote history and inserted a version of propaganda into textbooks that we still believe is history, you know? There you are just watching me make mistakes and stumble and grow and find myself. And I think that that is ultimately a more engaging viewing experience, and allows people the grace to change their opinions than if I, as the filmmaker, was just like, “Look at the documents, look at what you did.”

Jo Reed:  Welcome to Quick Study, the monthly podcast from the National Endowment for the Arts.  This is where we'll share stats and stories to help us better understand the value of art in everyday life.  And I'm copiloting Quick Study with Sunil Iyengar.  He's the Director of Research and Analysis here at the Arts Endowment.  Good morning, Sunil.

Sunil Iyengar:  Good morning, Jo.

Jo Reed:  And I know there's a big UNESCO research report about the COVID-19 on cultural workers that you wanted to share.

Sunil Iyengar:  Yes I did.  Thanks Jo.  The report's called "Cultural and Creative Industries in the Face of COVID-19," it's an economic impact outlook.  We know Jo obviously that artists and arts organizations were among the most traumatized segments of the economy last year when the pandemic struck.  The NEA's reported a lot of figures about unemployment rates, about audiences declining and all that of course because of the shutdowns and the economic repercussions of the pandemic.  But here we have a report that estimates that worldwide in 2020 there was a 750 billion dollars contraction in the total economic value that cultural and creative industries normally generate and that was declined relative to 2019. 

]Jo Reed:  Seven-hundred and fifty billion?

Sunil Iyengar:  Yes, that's right.  And according to UNESCO, this figure translates to job losses exceeding ten million workers last year.

Jo Reed:  Extraordinary.

Sunil Iyengar:  Yeah, sobering.

Jo Reed:  Yeah.  So tell me, how was this report put together, how did they get their facts and their figures?

Sunil Iyengar:  Yeah, so they actually did a sweep of literature around the world really and covered I think 54 studies meeting their criteria for this systematic literature review.  And so together all the data estimates COVID's impact on cultural and creative industries in 20 mid to large size economies, so 20 mid to large size economies and in these economies the researchers note together that accounts for about 60 percent of the world economy. 

Jo Reed:  That actually just gives you an idea not only of the number of people that are employed in the arts or culture related sectors, but also the deep, deep impact COVID had on them.

Sunil Iyengar:  Yes.  And as I said a moment ago, we've been tracking at the NEA just in the U.S. alone understanding loss to box office revenue, lower attendance rates for particular performing arts, but also visual arts events and of course higher rates of unemployment for artists.  And so this has been obviously of serious concern to the sector and of course to funders like us for more than a year now.  For example, based on a U.S. study that came out last year, which was the Brookings Institution Study here in D.C., UNESCO estimates that there was a loss of between 20 percent and 30 percent lost to the gross economic value that the arts contribute to the U.S. economy.  So between 20 to 30 percent in the U.S. alone in terms of the economic loss and that was just a U.S. estimate according to UNESCO.  But now through the study we now see that look the total of course was much greater worldwide and we're talking again about a whopping 750 billion dollars in economic loss.

Jo Reed:  Sunil, let me ask you is it rather new to track cultural and creative workers as sort of a separate economic entity or has that been done for a while?

Sunil Iyengar:  So to me this is what generates a lot of potential interest, we have not consistently as the U.S. tracked cultural and creative workers across the board.  Now the NEA working with the Bureau of Economic Analysis part of the Department of Commerce tracks arts and cultural industries, but that doesn't include all what we might consider creative industries, of course you can be creative in many different professions in many different walks of life.  What's interesting here is this report looks at what the U.S. data shows, but it also looks of course all around the-- as I said, about 54 studies were brought into this meta review.  And it really identifies cultural and creative workers and industries as a separate dynamic segment of the world's economy, so one that's not worth tracking just in the U.S., but in nations in every part of the globe.

Jo Reed:  And is there any glimmer of good news in this report other than we're tracking cultural workers only to find out they're being devastated?

Sunil Iyengar:  Yeah.  Well so I do think what's helpful here in the report is they did a series of case studies, international case studies that show up at the end of the report that showcase digital innovation across cultural and creative industries.  Now we all know those of us whether we're in the arts or not how much we've had to rely on web streaming services for our entertainment and other sources, digital sources when we couldn't attend as many live in person events.  But what this report does is it shows that so called niche streaming services that is focused on more specialist and/or culturally diverse content appears to have prospered in their words since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.  So I think there's a lot of work to be done to understand how are these so called niche streaming services that arts organizations have innovated during the pandemic, how are these services doing in terms of reach, accessibility, are they bringing in new audiences so to speak into the arts, are they hitting different cultural traditions, how capacious are these platforms and how will that translate into in person attendance for example when things start to open up again in full force.

Jo Reed:  Well we'll all be keeping our eye on that.  Sunil, thank you so much and I'll talk to you next month.

Sunil Iyengar:  Thank you, Jo.  Pleasure.

Jo Reed:  That was Sunil Iyengar.  He's the Director of Research and Analysis here at the National Endowment for the Arts.  This has been Quick Study.  The music is "We Are One" from Scott Holmes Music.  It's licensed through Creative Commons.  Until next time, I'm Josephine Reed.  Thanks for listening.