Our Mission
Arts in Bushwick is a visual and performing arts platform using our visibility to help connect and advocate for people of color, natives and local artists from all walks of life while keeping the cultural relevance alive within Bushwick. Our responsibility is to respect the diversity of our community and hold ourselves accountable while maintaining social responsibility for our impact in the neighborhood we serve.
Our History
The first Bushwick Open Studios was held in October 2006 as a one day “open to all” festival celebrating the creativity of the artists in Bushwick. There were 85 open studios, a film festival, a group show for those who did not have studios, a community parade and a cabaret, music & variety act closing party in the Nut-Roaster warehouse that is now the Brooklyn Fire Proof Film Studio. The idea for Bushwick Open Studios came out of an event in Nov 2005 called “Bushwick Open Source” (BOS) organized by Bushwick Art Projects. This event was a one night, curated event that linked together multiple art spaces. Back then there were only a few event spaces in Bushwick. There was going to be a second “Bushwick Open Source” event in Oct 2006 with the addition of an Open Studios component, but in late September the event was cancelled.
On September 30th 2006, a small group of artists under the name Gemini Artist Productions purchased the domain name bushwickopenstudios.com and put out the word that B.O.S. 2006 was still on! That a small group of artists and volunteers organized what became the first Bushwick Open Studios in only 21 days and on October 21st 2006 Bushwick Open Studios was born.
Following the success of the first Bushwick Open Studios, it was decided that an open and all inclusive organization should be formed to produce the Bushwick Open Studios annually and to make sure that it would be self sustaining. In January 2007 open meetings were held by the artists and volunteers involved in the 2006 B.O.S. and out of these meetings, Arts in Bushwick was founded in order to organize the 2007 B.O.S. Thus in June of 2007, B.O.S. became an annual summer festival organized by Arts in Bushwick and has continued to grow every year to become one of the largest open studio events in the world.
While all of these things are true and impressive one of the things the past AIB/BOS failed to do was really fulfill their goal at being an inclusive artist community. Our goal moving forward is to understand the power of Gentrification and how we as an organization have also played a part by not doing the proper outreach to the native community and the Bushwick we say we serve. We plan to move forward with full transparency and accountability while still maintaining and producing one of the best open studios in the world.
Our Projects
Arts In Bushwick has two core functions – producing neighborhood arts festivals, and facilitating community projects and dialogue.