Jax Deluca

Jax Deluca oversees the NEA’s grant portfolio and resources focused on supporting the diverse ecology of film and media arts ecosystems across the nation. This includes support for artists, audiences, and organizations engaging in a range of practices, including traditional, experimental, hybrid, and expanded forms of storytelling, artistic expression, and performance through film, cinema, audio, broadcast, web-based technologies, creative code and computation, interactive media, and other emergent practices at the intersection of arts and digital technology.

In her role at the NEA, she has spearheaded several initiatives focused on strengthening national arts infrastructure and promoting equity and career sustainability for workers within the creative industry, such as the Documentary Sustainability Summit, which resulted in an NEA field report that led to the establishment of the Independent Film and Media Arts Field-Building Initiative; and, working with the NEA Office of Research & Analysis, the first U.S.-based Arts & Technology Field Scan, with findings from the research synthesized in a report, Tech as Art: Supporting Artists Who Use Technology as a Creative Medium, alongside additional NEA resources such as a regional trends report and a guide for public arts funders.

She has presented at a variety of professional forums, such as Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA), Americans for the Arts (AFTA), National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA), New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), MIT Open Doc Lab, Film Festival Alliance, Art House Convergence, SXSW, International Documentary Association (IDA), and the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (IFACCA). In 2019, she was invited as an industry advisor for Sundance Institute’s Creative Producing Summit.

Prior to joining the NEA, she was the executive director of Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center (Buffalo, NY) and served as a board member and advisor on cultural strategy and nonprofit administration for entities such as Arts Services Initiative of Western New York, Greater Buffalo Cultural Alliance, Empire State Learning Network: STEM Hub of Western New York, Arts Partners for Learning of Western New York, and Western New York Book Arts Center. She graduated from the Institute for Electronic Arts at Alfred University and maintains a creative practice primarily working in sound and experiential performance.