Venice Arts’ mission is to ignite, expand, and transform the lives of Los Angeles’ low-income youth through photography and film education, and to use our participatory storytelling practices to amplify the voices of underrepresented communities around the world. This mission grew out of our founding dream: to create a vibrant, neighborhood arts center committed to education and community-building through the arts.

Venice Arts was established in 1993 with 10 kids, committed volunteers, and the vision to create high-impact arts education programs that inspire and empower low-income youth. Our first workshop, Venice Through Our Eyes, taught young people how to use the camera to find their voice: exploring, describing, and sharing their world through visual storytelling. Today, this work, now referred to as participatory or participant-produced media, continues to inform our local programs, as well as the projects we develop in partnership with others.