Project Summaries

With support from the KDA Creative Corps, the Arts Council of Kern will foster community involvement and engagement by bringing people together through learning and participating in group art forms from the first peoples. Four indigenous artists will share and demonstrate how we can build bridges and bring transformation through the arts. Deliverables will be a book of native storytelling by Alan Salazar, multiple reels and a project documentary, photography and indigenous arts exhibits in participating museums, community art, and accessible education programs, culminating in three festive events, including exhibits and performances by the artists and participants.

With support from the KDA Creative Corps, Arts Enrichment For All will develop MIGHTY ME! curriculum in both English and Spanish and implement it in many communities in the Central Valley. The MIGHTY ME! curriculum is four weeks of learning aimed at teaching young children, ages 3-8, the value of being healthy in body and mind through their hygiene practices, the food they put in their bodies, how they build relationships and how they care for themselves.

With support from the KDA Creative Corps, Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra (BSO) will hire the BSO conductor and musicians to perform “The Conductor’s Spellbook,” a family-friendly, educational and fun arrangement for all ages. The BSO will partner with Kern Health Systems (KHS), the County Health Authority that governs Kern Family Health Care, and invite other civic and social agencies to create a free onsite pre-concert event for the community. The concert is intended to provide social support and stress relief through community and family engagement and help close the opportunity gap of exposure to the arts in rural communities.

With support from the KDA Creative Corps, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Kern County will create jobs for local artists in the Media Arts artistic discipline to document the Lamont Boys & Girls Club teens clean-air advocacy efforts in South Kern. The short educational documentary in Spanish and English through in-person and virtual showings will bring attention and awareness to the high levels of air pollution in the rural cities of Arvin and Lamont and how local teens are utilizing air monitoring, advocacy, and community education and engagement to improve the quality of life for those living in one of California’s most disadvantaged communities.

With support from the KDA Creative Corps, Camp Taylor will utilize regional artists to engage youth in their community at their camp art studio with new classes focused on empowering traditionally underserved Central California pediatric cardiac patients and families to explore their innate creativity, foster their social-emotional well-being and deepen their understanding of congenital heart disease and its treatments. Sessions will focus on a range of media, including heart modeling via 3D printers, cartoon strips, painting, heart art journaling and therapeutic molding with clay. Camp Taylor, through this initiative, will strengthen regional health equity and help more Central California children and families understand the healing power of art.

With support from the KDA Creative Corps (KDACC), Community Media Access Collaborative will host The Big Tell, a project designed to empower marginalized individuals by providing media resources and training in the art of documentary filmmaking. Participants will produce short films highlighting lesser-known people, organizations, or issues impacting the KDACC focus areas. The project aims to improve the quality of life for those living in California’s lowest quartile of the HPI by raising awareness and promoting discussions about issues affecting their community through the powerful medium of documentary storytelling.

With support from the KDA Creative Corps, Dance Camera West will fund “VISIBILITY: SELF REFLECTIONS: a dance film commission project intended for underrepresented artists from low HPI neighborhoods in Bakersfield. The three phases of the project are PREPARE; PRODUCE; PRESENT. Participants will develop autobiographical, original stories in movement-based films to express the unique voices of the marginalized members of Bakersfield’s Q1 quartile as outlined in the Healthy Places Index.

With support from the KDA Creative Corps, the Dolores Huerta Foundation will continue to strengthen and reify their transformative arts and new media pathways. In addition to the launch of their first annual social justice summer arts camp in July 2023, they will also establish three artist residencies in Kern, Fresno and Tulare Counties.

With support from the KDA Creative Corps, Eastern Sierra Artists will take a lead role in igniting a new wave of public art in the City of Bishop, Inyo County and surrounding areas that amplify the voices of communities currently under-represented within public art in this region and bring a fresh, contemporary approach to public art. By creating a large, collaborative mural at a prominent downtown site, they aim to model a collaborative approach, prioritization of under-represented voices and community engagement in public art with a strong social justice focus.

With support from the KDA Creative Corps, Garden Pathways will provide training, mentorship, and life coaching by industry professionals to high school students in the lowest quartile of the California Healthy Places Index. Students will come together, create several distinct bands with vocalists and perform at two public events. The nine-month program will engage youth in transformative education, artistic education, character education and in a broad array of activities that promote educational advancement.

With support from the KDA Creative Corps, the Kern River Valley Art Association will create “Make Kern River Valley Better Through The Arts,” a multifaceted program to inform residents about important issues facing Kern River Valley communities. Residents from the lowest quartile on the Healthy Places Index will have the opportunity to visit five community gathering spaces to view an original documentary film and engage in a discussion with their neighbors about climate mitigation, emergency preparedness, water and energy conservation, and civic engagement, and to propose actions for improvement. Additionally, an Industrial Arts Center will be established to train students and community residents in a variety of industrial arts skills useful for both job preparation and life enrichment.

With support from the KDA Creative Corps, Modesto Sound will host residents from the lowest quartile of the California Healthy Places Index to record stories, poems, and songs for the California Audio Roots Project. The focus will be on social justice and community engagement. To encourage participation and honor the value of their time, residents will be paid to record these podcasts. The finished 25-minute shows will air on two radio stations and be available online for streaming and downloading, as well as be put on USB flash drives to give away at two culminating showcases. The showcases will be free and open to the public, giving residents the opportunity to meet each other, celebrate with the community, and hear each other’s stories.

With the support from the KDA Creative Corps, and together with their talented, local artists, Outsiders Nation Mobilize Impact will strive to make education a way of life, promote Social Justice, inspire community engagement and purpose to mobilize all that they currently do with their outdoor educational program and take it to the streets. Outsiders Nation’s goal is to put neighboring low income and at-risk children and their families in the way of various forms of dance, art mediums, pottery and integrating media arts and theater by means of a mobile platform. This mobile platform (Traveling Fine Arts Camp) will provide pop up classrooms where students will rotate through a lesson/training with each of their artists on a weekly basis.

With support from the KDA Creative Corps, Stage View Performing Arts Foundation will provide: employment to four dance artist educators, hire four professional choreographers, and scholarship 125 dance artists to perform in two free professional shows and four community workshops. Our project impacts communities scoring lower than >20% on the Economic and Racial Justice indicators of the Healthy Places Index and is a year-long community engagement campaign that increases exposure to the arts, physical activity, and improved mental health.