The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) laid off three of five staff members of its Video Data Bank (VDB), including director Tom Colley, as part of 20 total layoffs across the institution. The cuts, announced on November 12, eliminated leadership and key distribution and digital management roles, sparking outcry from the new-media art community. VDB, founded in 1976, is a leading archive of video art with over 6,000 works by artists including Nam June Paik, Bruce Nauman, and Pipilotti Rist, distributed worldwide via subscription streaming.
These layoffs highlight the severe financial pressures facing U.S. art schools, driven by enrollment declines—especially among international students—and changes in federal policy, including cuts to National Endowment for the Arts funding under President Donald Trump. The sudden restructuring threatens VDB's future acquisitions and programming, raising concerns about the preservation and accessibility of a vital resource for video and media art scholarship.