Cultural expression shouldn’t be seen as separate from public policy, ASU professor says

Maria Rosario Jackson recently returned to Arizona State University. She’d been a professor there previously, but took a break a few years ago for a pretty cool job: former President Joe Biden nominated her to be chair of the National Endowment for the Arts.

She served in the role until last year, and now she’s back at ASU, where she’s a professor of Creativity and Social Impact.

She’s planning to build on the work she did with the NEA, where she saw her role as encouraging Americans to live what she calls “an artful life.” When The Show spoke to her last week, she talked about what that means to her.

Full conversation

MARIA ROSARIO JACKSON: It certainly includes the most conventional ways that people think about cultural participation, like visiting a museum or going to a concert, or seeing a play in venues that are intended for the distribution and dissemination of professional art forms. And it also means the kinds of things that you might do at home could be traditions that are passed down from one generation to another, that are meaningful because they are about storytelling. They are about creative expression.

It's the full range, right? So it's things that might happen in parks and community centers and public streets, and the things that we are more conventionally familiar with.

SAM DINGMAN: Yeah. Well, if I'm not mistaken, in addition to the arts, you have a strong background in community development, public policy, urban planning. And I know, for example, when you were at NEA, you did partnerships with the Department of Health and Human Services and the EPA and FEMA. 

What did those look like, and how are those reflective of these ideas?

JACKSON: Yeah. You know, I think that at their most powerful, artists, the work of artists, the work of cultural organizations, I think that all of that is at its most powerful when it's not in a silo, but when we think of it as fully integrated into how we build communities where all people can thrive and reach their full potential.

When you think about it in that way, that it should be part of all of the things that we care about, then the role of arts administrators, artists, cultural organizations, it takes on some different additional realms. So there were all of these opportunities to think about how the arts could be really core to so many of the things that we aspire to as, as a nation.

DINGMAN: Yeah. And there is this idea sometimes in culture, please tell me if you disagree that, you know, the public is kind of doing an artist or an arts organization a favor by paying attention. And that, you know, art sort of is like this thing that floats above the rest of quote unquote, normal life.

 But what you're saying, if I'm not misunderstanding, is that we can reorient our ways of thinking about art as something that is actually like it's all part of the same mission.

JACKSON: Yes. And I think, you know, there are some cultures that have never made the disconnection, right? When you think of some Native American cultures or the kind of practices that allow us to make meaning, ask questions, dream, connect to each other, connect to the divine, which are all, you know, all these things.

We do this through the arts, express our full humanity, and hopefully see the humanity of others. Yeah, when that is not viewed as apart from how we live every day.

DINGMAN: Right.

JACKSON: There's a great deal more potential for power. I feel like it's most useful to think about the arts and participation in cultural life as a precondition for all of the other things that we want to accomplish, because ultimately, if we can't see our own humanity and that of others, we don't have much of a shot of building systems that actually allow us to care for each other.

DINGMAN: Yeah. You know, that makes me think about something that you said once with regard to the FEMA partnership. You said, quote, “some of that work was thinking about how cultural resilience is a component of a more comprehensive understanding of resilience.” 

Am I making that connection properly, that there's this idea in that sentiment to me that oftentimes art is about the resilience of the human spirit. And we have to believe in that in order to build infrastructure around it.

JACKSON: Yes, I think I think that's right. And, you know, when we were working with FEMA, the beauty of that particular collaboration was that it had at least two prongs, and one was helping the agency to better understand how artists and cultural organizations operate and to to make sure that when there were programs to address disaster and recovery from disaster, that those entities were understood sufficiently such that they could also benefit maximally.

But the other strand really had to do with what you just brought up. And that is recognizing that artists and cultural organizations are sometimes positioned in ways to help get through trauma, to help imagine how to rebuild something that has been decimated, to remind people that life is still available to them and joy is still available.

Getting that kind of sensibility into a federal system that is intended to advance resiliency and deal with some of the most dire circumstances that people sometimes have in their lifetime. It seemed really important. And we were, we had a terrific relationship with some of our colleagues in public service from that agency at the time when I was, I was doing that work. And that's just one example, but there were lots.

DINGMAN: Yeah, well, you know, another portion of your time there that, as I understand it, was very impactful for you, where you did some traveling in Native American communities?

JACKSON: Yes, absolutely. So and that was very impactful. The work in Native American communities and the work in, in many communities where there was a commitment to, in some cases, retrieving art forms and art practices that had been interrupted, or where there had been an attempt to historically erase them.

And often the generosity that comes with something that you find important and valuable and is expressive of what is most important about a people and to to be willing to even share that. Yeah, that's very hopeful work.

DINGMAN: Yes. Well, this comes to your return to ASU. Tell us about what that looks like so far and what it will look like going forward.

JACKSON: So, you know, some of that is still still a work in progress. But but I will tell you that I'm really interested in food, how nourishment isn't only caloric or chemical, but when you think about the growing of the food, the preparation of it, the sharing of it, the human connection, aesthetics, concern with joy and all of that is part of nourishment.