Collection
How the Arts Shape Society
![Hank Willis Thomas on the Role of Art in Civic Life](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/ff90bf8b-ac2f-4fe3-83ff-4540644db98a/53813071832_c5daf5a965_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=400&q=80&rect=2000%2C0%2C4000%2C4000&w=400)
Perspective, identity, history, commodity, race — these are just a few of the issues conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas explores through his work. He’s the 2024 Aspen Instit...
![Roots and Revelations](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/9a7290c3-c71d-4303-979a-7b49449a77c4/53824082684_f2a441a5d7_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=225&q=80&rect=0%2C312%2C6000%2C3375&w=400)
Henry Louis Gates Jr. — one of America’s leading public intellectuals and director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard — explains the i...
![Guerrilla Creativity](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/24e08eb1-8bb0-4970-9930-a617d58c5f32/53821275967_e65a66da2d_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=225&q=80&rect=0%2C185%2C5493%2C3090&w=400)
In the last 30 years, conglomerates from Amazon to Netflix to Spotify have changed the way we interact with media, books, fashion and music. Creatives are struggling to mainta...
![The Secret of Making Hits](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/008361bf-2540-4a00-8e1f-69739f370ce8/53822660989_e5265f0505_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=225&q=80&rect=1%2C307%2C5880%2C3308&w=400)
Amid seismic shifts in the entertainment world, Oscar-, Golden Globe- and Emmy-winning Brian Grazer has managed to keep pivoting to new ways to tell stories in movies, TV and...
![Creativity in Confinement](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/5817dd14-bfd6-49b1-b658-02ccfd2bfa4d/common.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=600&q=80&rect=2293%2C0%2C3669%2C5503&w=400)
When people in prison are given creative outlets, the impact is life-changing. Hear from a hip-hop artist setting up prison recording studios, an architect designing more huma...
![Vagabond of Song](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/7eea29da-ea74-4516-b211-776d628c7f8a/53821145355_6b0d6d5891_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=225&q=80&rect=0%2C311%2C5975%2C3361&w=400)
Hurray for the Riff Raff is more than Alynda Segarra’s musical moniker; they spent their youth hopping trains across America, capturing that life in youthful poetry then and a...
![Julia Louis-Dreyfus Talks Easy with Sam Fragoso](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/1c8e8da8-5413-4723-a7ab-21a749e85606/53820905095_26da4c7347_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=225&q=80&rect=0%2C430%2C8256%2C4644&w=400)
Whether as Elaine Benes from “Seinfeld” or Selina Meyer from “Veep,” Julia Louis-Dreyfus delivers laughter. But in the upcoming film “Tuesday,” she communicates with death — i...
![Echoes of Time in Type](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/a0a8f949-e84c-4dd4-90fa-fa22b81a0f3d/53819113811_fa4c876577_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=225&q=80&rect=0%2C245%2C4651%2C2618&w=400)
You may not know what typeface this sentence is written in, but typography is crucial to how we convey, process and retain information. How has the form evolved? Hear from des...
![The Real Women of Shakespeare’s England](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/cc44397d-a3af-4329-8c45-4925b95839ef/53816971471_9beb512833_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=225&q=80&rect=0%2C242%2C4650%2C2616&w=400)
Rosalind, Viola, Portia and Beatrice are unforgettable roles in Shakespeare’s plays. But there were real women behind these characters — women who spoke out against patriarchy...