The Research Center for Arts and Culture (RCAC) is an archive that provides data, information, and programming in service of artists and the arts.

Our Research

Explore the RCAC's research reports, which document the circumstances and needs of artists in America — and address topics including cultural policy, education, participation in the arts, and creative aging.

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The RCAC was founded in 1985 at Columbia University and created over three decades of research, mostly on individual artists from many disciplines and in many cities in the United States, nationally and with some international work.  While its data are housed at ICPSR at the University of Michigan, this website acts as an archive to preserve its history, activities, oral histories, videos, and reports in the service of artists and the arts.

Legacy work in the visual and performing arts

“What is honored in a country is cultivated there.”

— Plato, Republic, Book VIII


« Meet the artists, educators, fellows and partners who are working together to preserve artistic legacies in ART CART …


« Meet the professionals who are working together to preserve artistic legacies in the Performing Arts Legacy Project