Developed In Compton

Access to tech and creative industry employment

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative (testing or implementing a new idea)

South LA and Compton are homes to numerous creatives across agencies. Many of our community members and youth aspire to also develop their creative careers, yet we have limited access to resources, technology and opportunities. We have a shortage of art facilities, stores, and spaces that make it difficult for creatives to develop their craft in their hometowns. We understand this to be a vital issue for the success of our local creatives in a highly competitive industry. Unfortunately, not all youth and community members have the means to always leave their city to gather material and/or experiences to help elevate their craft and career. We strongly believe that our youth and community members should be provided spaces within their city to develop and explore their creative outlets and gain various employment opportunities.

The service we envision is a center where artists can get their fine art negatives developed, art photographed or scanned, fine art prints made, stickers designed and cut, and professional headshots taken. We will offer free educational community workshop days in relation to these services. The benefit of this project is increased access to the means of production for local artists, and guidance in the creation of products for small creative businesses. Galleries and museums still predominantly display white male artists and artists of color cannot always depend on institutions to support their work. With an online storefront, creative businesses run by artists of color can bypass these barriers to entry and develop their own success. But artists still need assistance in translating their original works into sellable product, and dropship printing sites such as Redbubble and Society6 aren’t viable solutions for actual business owners. We aim to provide access to professional services and guidance that might otherwise be gatekept, with the ability to shift to meet community needs. Additionally, we will be teaching our youth workers firsthand skills while being paid for their training.

Los Angeles is a creative city booming with creative careers and opportunities, yet many local Black and Brown spaces are provided the training and opportunities to succeed in this industry. Numerous stories and film projects have been developed and released in Hollywood about Compton and its surrounding communities. Unfortunately, these stories are seldom written, produced or directed by people of color or people from the community. We believe that by empowering young people and local community members, they can begin shifting this dynamic and reclaim control and ownership of their community’s stories while thriving professionally. Overall we feel that the greater Los Angeles County will be impacted by this project through the amount of authentic stories being produced.

Developed in Compton is a project born out of the youth programming we complete year-round at Color Compton. Through our art and history internships such as the Community Archiving Fellowship, we found that many aspiring artists were interested in working with us and/or looking for paid opportunities that would help them not only grow their skills but generate income. Given that we already provide many of the services proposed for youth youth programming, this project would expand the services to local community members and other youth that are already connected to our existing programming. Additionally, this service would bring visibility to services within the city and encourage economic support within the city. We plan on measuring the success by the monthly customers we receive, the turnaround time of services and the percentage of returning customers.