Transformative Arts’ is a multi-disciplinary international civic initiative that works to give artists and the arts back to their communities. Led by a group of women who are curators, gallerists, artists, teachers and museum directors who do the insurgent work of collaboration with artists and neighborhoods to offer flexible and location-specific programming across art-making, exhibitions, education, and written and oral histories. We are led by the neighborhoods in which we work to ensure multiple, equitable and self described benefits for artists and communities. We are committed to restorative justice that is based on collaboration, and breaks down barriers to justice for all communities.

Operating out of our downtown LA headquarters, we offer art-centered programming at community centers, galleries, museums, dormant sites, artist studios, schools, parks and other unsanctioned and unusual spaces that give us the opportunity to talk about the integration of art and community life.

In Los Angeles, Evora and Paris, we partner with artists who understand what their communities need because they live and work in those communities. During this time of Covid when in person engagement has not been safe, we are working with our artists to bring public art to the streets where they live in ways that will uplift and give our communities something to look forward to; Kori Newkirk is building a publicly installed project to downtown LA that speaks to the vital history of music and visual culture in the area and is accessible to the large unhoused population, Rebecka Jackson is building her meditations for Black women to be placed throughout Inglewood, and we are bringing Manuel Lopez’s drawings of Boyle Heights to the streets of East LA that they depict. Simultaneously, we are planning robust in-person programming to begin in each location as soon as it is safe to do so.