Hyper-local
Multi-cultural
Inter-generational
Cultural Arts & Well-being.
Cultural Production
and Community Arts Coalition
in Service to the the Crenshaw District
from Leimert Park to Inglewood.
“Providing our memory keepers the space, the programs and the tools we need to heal from within.”
“We’re dreaming of a world where we, as artists, have our needs met with ease."
Leimert Park
Crenshaw
Inglewood
→→→ WATTS
Organize
Strategize
Mobilize
Alchemize
“If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive."
-Audre Lorde
Vision.
Vision.
We envision a functioning community based cultural arts coalition that offers high production value while maintaining the capicity to service the needs of its immediate community and becomes the foundation for a truly flourishing cooperative local creative economy.
At the global epicenter of arts and culture, Crenshaw Creative was formed out of necessity to strengthen organize and leverage the creative ecosystem the Crenshaw District so that the art remains central and artists maintain ownership as the main beneficiaries of their own creative expressions.
We’re imagining a new community based cultural institution that becomes the hub for some of the most ingenuitive artists of our time to collaborate, cooperate and craft together the foundations for the worlds we desire and deserve. We’re imagining a world where cultural preservation and artistic expression provide pathways towards collective well-being and overall prosperity.
We’re dreaming of a world where we, as artists, have our needs met with ease.
“civilization is to groups what intelligence is to individuals. it is a means of combining the intelligence of many to achieve ongoing group adaptation.”
-Octavia Butler
Mission.
Mission.
Our mission is to create the means by which we can remember, preserve and share our stories, as we create and expand public access to traditional and indigenous healing modalities. We are here to develop a trusted platform for the freedom of creative expression to flourish while healing our ourselves from within so that together we may educate and activate the world around us.
Dreaming of a functioning Cultural Arts & Wellness Coalition…
-
The World Stage. is an educational and performance art space in Leimert Park Village, the heart of Los Angeles’ African American cultural community. Founded in 1989 by the late world-renowned master jazz drummer Billy Higgins and by poet and community arts activist Kamau Daáood, in an attempt to fill a cultural void in the L.A. community. Initially formed as a loose collective of artists and arts supporters, The World Stage has grown to assume a pioneering and playing a pivotal role in South L.A.’s music and art landscape.
-
The creation of KAOS Network is an artistic cultural oasis in Leimert Park Village curating positive shared experiences in BlackDesign (Afrofuturism), music, and technology. KAOS Network offers a way for the artistically talented and art enthusiasts of South Los Angeles to enjoy trans-media and multimedia art disciplines being offered in this vibrant community.
-
Aziz Gallerie is a fine arts gallery in Leimert Park creating space for emerging and established artists. Through his unique and dynamic talents, Aziz Diagne, a self-taught multimedia artist, established himself as one of the premier contemporary glass painters. Diagne has traveled extensively throughout Africa, Europe, and South America, absorbing the art and cultures of diverse environments. These experiences have greatly enhanced Diagne's seemingly limitless repertoire and creative energy.
-
Acknowledging the gap between African immigrants and traditional physical and mental health services, the African Coalition promotes an African-centered approach to mental health care, service delivery.
-
St. Elmo Village is where we live - a place where people can meet as people first, to share those feelings, those things one wishes to share without dictation. Working together in a place like the Village we are reminded of the things that we have in common rather than those that separate us. The philosophy of St. Elmo Village is that all people are creative and powerful in their own way. Through sharing the creative process, we encourage self-confidence and self-esteem through the arts. St. Elmo Village has been providing art workshops, festivals, and numerous enhancement programs in the surrounding neighborhood and the Los Angeles community at large. The Village emphasizes pride in self as well as in our environment, which instills a desire to build up!
-
Destination Crenshaw is a reparative development project and will be the largest Black public art project in the U.S. and quite possibly the world. Ultimately, the project will commission more than 100 works by Black artists who have strong ties to Los Angeles, creating a pipeline of work and jobs for emerging, seasoned and internationally renowned artists. But the project is so much more than art. Its mission is nothing less than to place a cultural stamp of Blackness on Crenshaw Boulevard – a stamp akin to those in Chinatown, Mariachi Plaza, Koreatown and other ethnic enclaves.
