How the Humanities Highlight Policy Solutions
By Nancy Brune
A trained social scientist, I have spent much of my professional life analyzing critical policy challenges facing our communities by collecting data, developing models, completing quantitative analyses, and quantifying outcomes.
When I joined the Nevada Humanities Board in 2019, I knew that the organization had celebrated local authors and provided grants to support public-facing organizations. But admittedly, I had a very limited view of how humanities programming might inform our understanding of some of the challenges facing our Nevada communities. However, I immediately discovered that under the tutelage of the Nevada Humanities’ talented team, the organization has provided innovative ways to learn about issues relevant to our communities.
In some instances, Nevada Humanities has invited us to explore, question, and reflect on issues through visual art. For example, Nevada Humanities supported a multi-medium exhibition titled Along the Colorado, which explored the water crisis faced by the seven states who depend on the Colorado River. This exhibit, which was curated by Las Vegas artist Sapira Cheuk and includes paintings, mixed media, and video, was prompted by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s first ever declaration, in August 2021, of a water shortage at Lake Mead. The water crisis triggered new restrictions and challenged relationships among the Colorado River Basin states. Along the Colorado included participation from artists, scientists, and advocates from these states whose works explored themes of scarcity, commodification, conservation, legality, and the politics of water use.
Video still from Draining the Colorado by Alexander Heilner, Along the Colorado exhibition.
Currently, Nevada Humanities is hosting a visual representation of one of the biggest public health crises of our time – mental health wellness. Specifically, the current exhibition In My Room: Student Reflections on the Time of Isolation features artwork created by Las Vegas students that portrays the isolation students experienced during the COVID-19 lockdown.
In My Room: Student’s Reflections on the Time of Isolation exhibition artworks.
In other instances, Nevada Humanities invites us to learn about issues through forums and panel discussions. In 2021, Nevada Humanities, in partnership with ProPublica and the Reno Gazette-Journal, hosted a workshop about (the lack of) affordable housing in Reno. The organization also took up the issue of race and Black migration by inviting Caste author Isabel Wilkerson to speak to Nevadans. That same year, as presidential campaigns got underway, Nevada Humanities hosted a multi-event program on democracy and civic and electoral participation titled, Why It Matters. These events provided information on the history of voting in Nevada and introduced the challenges faced by tribal communities, new voters, and communities working to re-enfranchise formerly incarcerated people.
Throughout 2022, as hyper partisan politics divided us, Nevada Humanities sought to fortify our communal fabric with its program, A More Perfect Union. Through a series of panel conversations and other events, staff curated a program relevant to the anticipated celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026.
A More Perfect Union event, Memory and Resistance: Remembering Japanese American Incarceration. The first Day of Remembrance in Seattle, Washington on November 25, 1978. Courtesy of the Mizu Sugimura Collection, Densho.
Nevada Humanities currently has a spring fundraising campaign underway appropriately called Bloom. This campaign invites Nevadans to help Nevada Humanities grow their programming and cultural events to reach more people across the state. Bloom will help this organization continue to grow and nurture the humanities in Nevada with an eye on policy solutions through the lens of the humanities. You can support Nevada Humanities here.
Nevada Humanities does not offer data-driven policy solutions or definitive ways to address some of our community challenges. Rather, the organization provides different and innovative ways and platforms to describe and share the stories of our communities; it invites understanding, inquiry, and meaningful engagement in ways that a data-driven, analytical dissection of a problem may not. Nevada Humanities has revealed that the human experience, which may be tragic, messy, and challenging, may be more powerful in advancing our collective resolve to solve our problems than a neat, sophisticated, quantitative analysis.
Nancy Brune is a member of the Nevada Humanities Board of Trustees. A long time policy analyst and former Executive Director of the Guinn Center, Nancy was elected to the Las Vegas City Council in November 2022.
Photo courtesy of Nancy Brune.