OUR PROGRAMS
Boyle Heights Arts Conservatory offers free creative programs that support skill-building, career exploration, and pathways to opportunity across arts, media, and creative technology. Our programs meet. Our programs meet people where they are and support growth through hands-on learning, mentorship, and real-world experience.
Workforce & Reentry
Hands-on training and structured pathways that support justice-impacted youth and young adults as they build skills, confidence, and creative career direction.
Mural Workforce Academy (MWA)
Training the Next Generation of Public Artists
The Mural Workforce Academy trains emerging artists in muralism and public art through hands-on, place-based projects across Los Angeles. Participants work alongside professional muralists to develop technical skills, collaborate on large-scale public works, and prepare for creative careers rooted in Los Angeles’ rich mural tradition.
Bridge Academy Movement (BAM)
Bridge Academy Movement supports justice-impacted youth through pre-release training and post-release workforce navigation. BAM connects participants to creative skill-building, paid internships when available, and earn-and-learn opportunities that support successful reentry, stability, and long-term pathways in arts, media, and creative work.
Reentry Through Workforce™
Juvenile Justice Initiative
Creative Skill-Building Across LA County Juvenile Justice Settings
The Juvenile Justice Initiative provides long-term arts and media programming inside Los Angeles County Camps, Halls, and JDRCs. BHAC delivers structured, site-responsive curriculum in music, digital media, and visual arts for high school- and college-age youth. Participants earn certificates, engage in paid internships while incarcerated, and prepare to continue creative training with BHAC upon release.
Media ARts & CREATIVE TECHNOLOGY
Creative media programs focused on storytelling, music, broadcasting, and live production—supporting technical skill-building and authentic creative expression.
Por Vida Media Youth Collective
Por Vida Media Youth Collective supports young people in developing media and storytelling skills through hands-on work in podcasting, radio, photography, beat-making, and digital production. Participants build technical experience while strengthening creative voice, confidence, and collaboration across multiple media formats.
Claim Your Voice. Tell Your Story.
SessionsLA
SessionsLA supports emerging artists through music creation, recording, and performance experiences. Participants collaborate with peers and mentors to develop creative skills, explore live production, and gain hands-on experience that supports artistic growth and long-term engagement in music and performance.
Find your sound, shape your path
Native American & Indigenous (NAI) Media Arts
NAI Media Arts is a community-centered media program created in collaboration with Native and Indigenous artists, culture bearers, and educators. Youth explore storytelling and media creation through practices grounded in relationship, continuity, and lived experience, supporting creative skills that reflect who they are and where they come from.
Rooted in Culture and Community
POD PALS
Pod Pals introduces younger participants to audio storytelling through guided podcast creation. Youth learn to record, edit, and share their voices in a supportive, collaborative environment, building confidence and communication skills while engaging with BHAC’s broader media and radio ecosystem.
Voices that connect, stories that travel
ADDITIONAL CREATIVE WORKSHOPS
Hands-on exploration across photography, filmmaking, animation, audio production, and creative technology. Participants build foundational media skills while discovering creative tools and pathways into media arts careers.
Make, explore, build new skills
Community Creativity
& Engagement
Free, community-centered programs that bring people together through art, storytelling, and shared creative experiences across ages and neighborhoods.
Boyle
Heights Resilience hub
The Boyle Heights Resilience Hub is a trusted community space anchored by BHAC, integrating arts, radio, and information-sharing to support residents year-round. The Hub offers youth and senior programming, community preparedness training, bilingual broadcasting, and gathering space—strengthening connection, care, and collective resilience before, during, and beyond emergencies.
Creative Connection, Preparedness, & Care
Cartoons & Cereal
Cartoons & Cereal is a free monthly community event that brings families together for classic cartoons, a cereal bar, and hands-on drawing activities. Led by professional artists, the program creates accessible entry points into creativity, animation, and shared artistic play.
Two Scoops of Fun
Dungeons & Dragons
BHAC’s Dungeons & Dragons program offers free, facilitated gameplay that encourages creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving through shared storytelling. Youth and adults build imagination and social connection in an inclusive, low-pressure environment centered on play and community.
Roll into your next adventure
OPENLA
OpenLA is BHAC’s gallery and creative studio in Boyle Heights, designed as an elevated platform for visual art, performance, and creative exchange. The space features exhibitions by emerging and established artists, live performances, open mics, and community programming—while also serving as a primary studio and training space for the Mural Workforce Academy (MWA).
Gather, Glow, and Show
Boyle Heights Youth Festival (BHYFEST)
The Boyle Heights Youth Festival is a free, youth-led summer festival featuring live music, art, sports, community resources, and activities. Planned and produced by young people, BHYFest welcomes thousands each year and centers youth leadership, creativity, and community pride.
For youth, by youth
Professional Development & Consulting Hub
Training, workshops, and consulting for educators, organizations, and agencies seeking arts-based, relationship-centered approaches to learning, leadership, and community engagement.
Restorative Cultural Arts (RCA)
Restorative Cultural Arts (RCA) is BHAC’s professional development and consulting framework grounded in cultural knowledge, creative practice, and lived experience. RCA supports educators, agencies, and organizations through trainings that center relationship, accountability, and collective care—using the arts as a tool for reflection, learning, and practice.
Cultural Arts Praxis Rooted in Ancestral Knowledge
COMMUNITY &
ORGANIZATIONAL
Partnerships
BHAC partners with public agencies, schools, and organizations to deliver arts-based trainings and consulting rooted in service, reflection, and responsibility. This work supports teams in building authentic community engagement practices—moving beyond performative action toward approaches grounded in relationship, care, and accountability.
From Service to Practice
Partners & Funders
Our work is made possible through the collaboration and investment of partners who share our commitment to equity in the arts and creative workforce development across Los Angeles County.
