Welcome to BAVC

BAVC (pronounced "bay-vac") is a nonprofit media arts center that was founded in 1976 by a coalition of media makers and activists who wanted to find alternative, civic-minded applications for a new technology - PortaPak video. While the technology has continued to change, BAVC’s mission to bring increased cultural and economic participation to underserved communities through media, and our belief that telling compelling stories is powerful for both media maker and audience, remains. Over the last 30 years, BAVC has developed an entrepreneurial web of programs and services that brings together a multi-generational mix of artists, experienced media professionals, educators, low-income youth and adults, non-profit organizations and industry partners in this pursuit. BAVC’s programs include: 

• Training & Education – BAVC provides industry-certified video, digital audio, web design, and multimedia training to more than 3,000 students and professionals annually. Through state and industry partnerships, BAVC offers paid, subsidized and free training to a variety of media professionals, returning workers, community-based non-profit organizations, and new students.

• Technology, Media Arts and Innovation (TIMA) – In our main San Francisco facility, BAVC provides subsidized access to production and postproduction services to more than 1,000 independent video producers and non-profit organizations annually. In addition, BAVC provides artist residencies, grants, and fiscal sponsorship services to mediamakers. Through our new Innovation Lab, BAVC is also offering an annual Producers Institute for New Media Technologies and other opportunities for artists and the community to help create new, civic-minded applications for emerging technologies.
  
• Next Generation Programs – BAVC provides comprehensive year-long youth and workforce development programs for underserved youth in digital video, web, and music production. Over 500 youth are served weekly at 13 program sites throughout the Bay Area.

• Preservation of Cultural Works – BAVC works with museums, artists and cultural institutions around the world to remaster, transfer, and archive seminal creative and historical works on video and audio tape.
  
  
• Community Development –  BAVC provides various special events, forums and trainings that bring together our diverse community for networking and collaboration.

BAVC’s 12,000-square-foot main facility, our regional network of youth training sites (at 13 school and community-based sites around the Bay Area), and our extensive programming operate on a $4.6 million annual budget, comprised of a healthy combination of contributed and earned income. We train approximately 3,500 people each year in nearly 600 classes, and, over our 30-year-history, have supported the creation of more than 12,000 independent media productions. 

BAVC's Mission / Vision

In order to increase the cultural and economic participation of underrepresented groups and non-profit organizations, BAVC connects diverse communities to media creation and innovation. We teach. We empower creative expression. We develop future media and media makers. And we preserve historic media.

We are motivated to do this work through a long-standing commitment to freedom of expression and the creation of a more just and representative society.

Among our beliefs:

That emerging media technologies represent enormous economic and cultural potential and opportunity for underrepresented communities and non-profit organizations;

That telling compelling stories has the potential to create powerful change in both the media maker and audience;

That media creation can be a powerful tool for personal development, healing and growth; and

That there is power and efficiency in collaboration, particularly collaboration that brings together industry, government, and non-profit organizations.

BAVC's History >

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