See what’s underway and how to work with us.
R&D
Collaborations
Cultural Accessibility NYC
The project brings together disabled artists, advocates, and cultural leaders to assess existing resources and access gaps and to develop strategies for artists, cultural workers, and audiences with disabilities. Its research distinguishes compliance from functional access and from experiential equity, and covers education and resources, workforce development, access to equipment and services, and facility upgrades.
Our role: co-conceived and initiated the project; advisor and government relations.
Far Out Center
An initiative of the Rockaway Film Festival to acquire the historic Rockaway Courthouse (1931) and convert it into a permanent cultural and civic center for the Rockaway Peninsula. The 40,000-square-foot building would hold film screenings, exhibitions, live performance, youth and intergenerational programs, a cafe and meeting space for neighborhood groups, and more than 20,000 square feet of affordable studios, offices, and small business incubation units.
Our role: policy advice, research, strategy, and government relations.
Percent for Green
Alicia Grullón is an artist, educator, and organizer whose work merges performance, video, photography, and social practice to challenge systems of exclusion. Since 2014, her practice has extended into policy, with art shaping civic life directly.
Percent for Green is a proposed local law developed through Grullón’s art practice. Modeled on New York City’s Percent for Art law of 1982, it would direct a percentage of city-funded capital construction budgets to community gardens, urban farms, climate resilience, and other green space, prioritizing neighborhoods that carry the heaviest environmental burdens. The project has convened artists, policy experts, community organizers, and elected officials through teach-ins, community assemblies, and public art actions.
Our role: policy advice, research, and strategy.
Queensboro People's Space (Western Queens Community Land Trust)
The Western Queens Community Land Trust (WQCLT), whose mission is to hold Western Queens land in permanent community ownership, prioritizing low-income and immigrant residents, sustainable building, and ongoing organizing, is working to turn the underused city-owned building at 44-36 Vernon Blvd into the Queensboro People’s Space (QPS): permanently affordable workspace for artists, cultural workers, nonprofits, small manufacturers, and immigrant-owned businesses, held in community ownership.
The site was part of the failed Amazon HQ2 deal. After it collapsed, WQCLT built the QPS plan through neighborhood workshops and outreach beginning in 2021.
Role: Supporter. The Institute supports WQCLT’s campaign to secure 44-36 Vernon Blvd for the Queensboro People’s Space.
Understanding Arts Service Organizations (ASOs) in a Changing Culture and Arts Ecosystem
This multi-phase national study examines the role, condition, and evolution of the organizations that support artists and culture and arts groups through advocacy, training, regranting, fiscal sponsorship, and shared services. ADC Consulting, the cultural strategy practice led by Alejandra Duque Cifuentes, directs the study with support from the Mellon and Ford Foundations.
As one of five organizations on the leadership committee of Voices for Creative New York, we serve as New York State’s lead research partner for the 2026 National ASO Survey, a centerpiece of Phase 2 of the study. The survey gathers primary data on ASOs’ services, finances, workforce, constituents, and impact. Our partnership adds New York-specific questions and coordinates outreach to more than 600 organizations statewide.
Our role: lead research partner, coalition participation and coordination, survey design, statewide outreach, and data analysis.
Consultancies
We design and test policy ideas with partners in government, philanthropy, and civil society, working at the level of systems and keeping decision-making transparent and participatory.
Contact us to set up an exploratory meeting.
Office Hours
Once a month, we host office hours: a facilitated peer exchange. We contribute research, data, and policy knowledge.
Participants share a challenge they are facing and contribute their own experience. The hour closes with the full group trading resources, contacts, and open questions.