Aspen is a place for leaders to lift their sights above the possessions which possess them. To confront their own nature as human beings, to regain control over their own humanity by becoming more self-aware, more self-correcting, and hence more self-fulfilling.

Walter P. Paepcke, Aspen Institute Co-Founder

2026/27 Harman/Eisner Artist in Residence

Photo by Michael Avedon

Ken Burns

Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns will serve as The Aspen Institute’s 2026–2027 Harman-Eisner Artist-in-Residence. Burns will contribute his artistic vision to Aspen Institute policy programs, public events, leadership initiatives, and convenings in Aspen and Washington, DC.

“I am honored to serve as the Aspen Institute’s Harman/Eisner Artist in Residence at such a meaningful moment for our country and for the Institute,” Burns said. “As America marks its 250th anniversary, coming on the heels of the Aspen Institute’s 75th, coupled with the release of our series on the American Revolution, this residency offers a rare opportunity to reflect on our shared history, our enduring values, and the kind of leadership required to sustain a democratic society.”

Burns is a multi-award-winning documentary director and producer whose films have shaped how generations of Americans understand their history for 50 years. His films earned 17 Emmy Awards, 2 Grammy Awards, and 2 Academy Award nominations. In 2008, Burns received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, and in 2022, he was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame. In November 2025, PBS broadcast The American Revolution, a six-part, twelve-hour series on America’s founding struggle, which presents the story of the men and women of the Revolutionary generation, their humanity in victory and defeat, and the crisis that they lived through.

For decades, Ken Burns has used documentary filmmaking to help Americans see our true history, bringing the country’s defining figures, conflicts, and contradictions directly into our living rooms. In conversation with Fareed Zakaria at the 2025 Aspen Ideas Festival, he pulls back the curtain on his filmmaking canon, from The American Revolution to The Civil War to Jazz, revealing the unfinished debates that began in 1776 and illuminating who we are as a people.