From Web 2.0 to 2025: A Note on Art of the Rural's Journey to Substack

Reflections on digital connectedness and rural arts & culture

Hip-hop artist Ekknowledge performs during a folk arts showcase at the Little Loomhouse during the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange, 2023. Photo Credit: M. Tyler McDaniel.

Hello new and old friends,

Thanks so much for spending some time with us here on Art of the Rural’s Broadsheet!

Each week, we offer podcasts, interviews, and reflections from across the arts and culture landscape of rural America and Indian Country, alongside lots of links and resources so that folks can read, listen, and look more deeply into the wealth of expression broadcasting out from our communities.

If you are new to Art of the Rural and looking for a vantage into what we do, some starting points might be our nationally-acclaimed Rural-Urban Exchange program, our Spillway program focused on intercultural collaboration along the Mississippi River, or the High Visibility exhibition and podcast highlighting the work of artists and organizations across the country.

The Art of the Rural story began fifteen years ago, in a very different moment in the internet’s history, when blogging often was a force for connectedness and idea sharing, and when blogs had the potential to influence cultural and political conversations far beyond the modest scale of their individual endeavors. The notion of the “blogosphere,” a fashionable word back then, captured that powerful sense of expanding networks and intellectual exchange.

When the Art of the Rural blog began in 2010, an internet search for “rural art” would return lots of links to European sites and networks, but few US resources.

It’s hard to overstate the potential of that moment for those living outside the cities — as the hallmarks of Web 2.0 such as social media, YouTube, and app-based smartphones, met with (slowly) expanding rural broadband and cell service. This was an unprecedented opportunity for rural people used to reporters and experts telling stories about them from distant cities, universities, and television studios. Finally, access to technology had caught up with our desire to tell our own more accurate and complex stories.

In that charged atmosphere, Art of the Rural became a meeting space for a gloriously diverse range of artists, writers, culture bearers, organizations, and community leaders. Though we came from different backgrounds and different geographies, we were united in our belief that there is no singular “rural America” — and that, together, we could reframe that assumption into a much more dynamic understanding.

As we evolved into a non-profit organization, we collaborated toward digital platforms and in-person gatherings that amplified stories and visions for the future, while passionately advocating for this work to be considered a “field” — one worthy of equal visibility, opportunities, and support. As those years accumulate towards the present, we progressed further in the ways we support artists and culture bearers, share new stories about life beyond the city, and bridge divides across the places we all hold dear.

Our efforts evolved during a stretch of years when online platforms, and social media in particular, began to exert relentless control over what content would be visible and discoverable for readers. The emergence of Facebook’s reaction-based algorithm updates in the mid-2010s were a harbinger of the situation we all find ourselves in today, across cultures, politics, and civic life.

The pleasures of the pre-algorithmic Internet — those moments of stumbling upon a new writer, organization, or way of looking at the world — can often feel increasingly fleeting. And this engineered scarcity short-circuits the kinds of exchange and relationships that are vitally necessary to artists and organizations working in rural America and Indian Country.

Art of the Rural is happy to share news of our work here on this platform, because, at least in this moment of its life cycle, Substack feels like an ecosystem where a more engaged and thoughtful online community might still be cultivated.

Minnesota Rural-Urban Exchange members ricing at Lake Itasca. Photo Credit: Moira Villiard.

Our launch of this Substack also feels like a natural evolution in our work, and in so many ways also feels like a new return to the conversation and creative spirit that fueled our early years as a blog. We are a staff of Substack readers, and we have found this space to be a haven for provocative and insightful commentary, alongside amazing learning journeys toward the next book, album, recipe, movie, or language that will move and inspire us. We humbly offer our Broadsheet as a contribution towards those positive, generative forces that keep us all asking questions and making connections.

We are grateful for you all being with us on this next stage of our journey, and we’re looking forward to staying in touch.

A Note about Subscriptions & Support

As an organization, we work to remove barriers to experiencing artistic and cultural creation and to building relationships and learning. Our entire Substack will always be free for everyone to enjoy and wander through.

If you are moved to support this mission, please consider subscribing here or making a tax-deductible contribution, so that we can continue to offer this open access to all our neighbors and bring these stories to your inbox.

About Art of the Rural

Art of the Rural is a collaborative, 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. We resource artists and culture bearers to make connections, change narratives, and bridge divides.

While our work reaches across many geographies, we operate a field office in Kentucky and a central office in Winona, Minnesota, a town located within Dakota homelands, on the banks of the Mississippi River.

Learn more about our initiatives and show your support at artoftherural.org.