The Story of the Arts in Westchester County
This year’s Iron Viz feeder competition was a great pleasure to participate in — as they say — “I either win, or I learn!” When this topic was announced, I immediately knew what it was that I was aiming at for my entry. #Arts and arts organizations frequently produce cultural events around a depth and breadth of different communities. Some arts organizations focus on specific cultural communities, and still others push the envelope of what an artistic future may look like. Whatever the organization’s mission, they employ local talent, contribute to their local areas by helping residents see and understand the world from alternative perspectives, and absorb music, movement, visual, tactile and other sensory experiences from which they might not otherwise benefit, all while investing the funds in their immediate surroundings (through the methodology above.) Naturally, when this year’s competition came around (announced Jan. 10, with a due date of Feb. 7,) my idea came to me almost immediately.
I wanted to tell a story with this data. More than a normal story walking a data viz consumer through separate sections of a well plotted dashboard, I really wanted to make a point that grants making has a number of connections. It links to not only the local area surrounding the organization receiving the grant, but also program types, politics, geographies, and time periods.
In the upper left is a cohort study of the top 5 awardees by year, with stacked bar segments sized by grant amount received. This ties back to the very first image you see in the data story, also at the top of this article.
Hot off the success of my B2VB dashboard where I used logos from the top 16 winningest schools to create a scatter plot, I used stock icon images from PowerPoint for program types in the bottom right chart for the same sort of effect. This is a comparison of number of program types by number of cities, sized by grant amount (watch how the types shift around year by year to get an idea of trending artistic priorities over time.)
The map (bottom left) and bar chart (top right) are correlated because I’ve used the same color coding for Senate Districts on the bars as in the map. Areas for districts shift around in accordance with which organizations receive funds within them (following deliberations by zip code.) This gives you an idea of 1) which geographies — and people within them — have arts based community resources, and 2) the linkage to politics. Art (in the same was as education) is always political, going as far back as cave paintings. The long form of that discussion is for a different blog.
One of my favorite things in this production is the level of animation. I was happy to finally learn that trick. One other Iron Viz participant designed their submission around the dj deadmau5's catalogue, and, to quote the musician: “we all press play.”
Check out the data story (<-do this first!) and dashboard on my Tableau Public profile. Find me and my business on LinkedIn or visit my website. What sort of insights can I make for you?
