The Los Angeles Artist Census (LAAC) is an artist-run research initiative that gathers and publishes data about the lives and practices of LA County visual artists.
Through surveys, interviews, and public programming, LAAC studies artists’ experiences with affordable housing, income security, debt, education, and access to healthcare. LAAC also examines how intersectional identities pertaining to race, gender, age, queerness, and ability relate to disparities in quality of life and professional development among artists.
Inspired by socially engaged art projects such as Minerva Cuevas’s Mejor Vida Corp and Rick Lowe’s Project Row Houses, LAAC aspires to foster community and self-empowerment amongst artists in Los Angeles. We recognize that traditional data research is conducted from a position of false neutrality, and has a history of sustaining social inequities. As such, our research employs a mixed-methods approach that is creative, empathetic, democratic, and social. Inviting fellow artists to participate in the research process, we gather and publish data that is often overlooked or misinterpreted by the institutions that ordinarily conduct this type of research.
LAAC is the first quality-of-life survey conducted on artists in LA County, and is unique among any research done on artists in the United States.
Publication
The LAAC newspaper is our first publication of data, printed in the summer of 2022. With a run of 2,000 copies, the publication was distributed for free in art spaces throughout greater Los Angeles.
Alongside presenting quantitative data from our Data Dispatch series, the publication features personal reflections, feelings, and experiences of local artists, commissioned works by Angel Alvarado, Ian Byers-Gamber, and York Chang that challenge the limitations of data research, and theoretical quotes from Trinh T. Minh-ha's work exploring power dynamics in knowledge production.
A Spanish translation of the publication can be found on our website, here.
The audio edition of the newspaper includes soundscapes recorded from around Los Angeles, audio descriptions of the artworks included in the print version, music by the Los Angeles Woodwind Skill Share (LAWWSS), and the voices of various artists who contributed to the LAAC.
Publication (Audio) Click to listen
Reports
From April to December 2021, the LAAC released its Data Dispatch series, which comprised short and focused reports on local artists. These reports were distributed through our email and Instagram accounts and were based on data collected during our 2020 Artist Census. You can access the archive of these reports below.
- Quick Report
- Data Dispatch ① Basic Necessities
- Data Dispatch ② Art Earnings × Expenses
- Data Dispatch ③ Artist Perspectives
- Data Dispatch ④ Art Earnings × Demographics
- Data Dispatch ⑤ Studio
- Data Dispatch ⑥ Studio × Demographics
- Data Dispatch ⑦ Health Care
- Data Dispatch ⑧ Health Care x Demographics
- Data Dispatch ⑨ Artists’ Donations
- Tatiana Vahan
FOUNDING DIRECTOR
- Corrina Peipon
- Evan Kleekamp
- Yelena Zhelezov
PROJECT CONSULTATION
- Neil Doshi
DESIGN CONSULTATION
- Cobi Krieger
MANAGING DIRECTOR
- Eric Andrew Carter
- Dr. Sara Constantino
DATA ANALYSIS
2020 Census Commitees
- Agnes Bolt
- Brenda Colonna
- Catherine Azimi
- Corrina Peipon
- Emily Martinez
- Eric Andrew Carter
- Dr. Jessica DeShazo
- Jordan Service
- Matthew Lax
- Dr. Sara Constantino
- Tatiana Vahan
QUESTION BUILDING
- Agnes Bolt
- Amanda Maciel Antunes
- Andrea Sisson
- Andy Campbell
- Celeste Voce
- Corrina Peipon
- Debra Scacco
- Denisse Alanis
- Emily Wing
- Jacqueline Falcone
- Janelle Ketcher
- Jessica Li
- Micah Rey (meyekərā)
- Monica Fernandez Zuñiga
- Sasha Fishman
- Tatiana Vahan
OUTREACH
- Cobi Krieger
- Dr. Sara Constantino
- Tatiana Vahan
- Apogee Graphics
RESEARCH
PROMOTIONAL DESIGN
