2026 Arts in Action Awarded Projects
We are excited to announce six Arts in Action projects for Fall 2026. In collaboration with local organizations in Los Angeles, these new and recurring initiatives will address shared challenges, strengthen communities, provide valuable learning experiences for students, and build lasting partnerships that benefit both campus and community members through creative problem-solving and civic engagement.
More than ever, art in the community serves as a powerful resource—connecting us when we feel alone, nurturing our collective wellbeing, and empowering us to support one another as we dare to create positive change in our communities.
BUNKER HILL REFRAIN: REIMAGINING THE REBEL ARCHIVE is a faculty-led project spanning the USC School of Architecture, Sol Price School of Public Policy, and USC Libraries. The project will invite USC undergraduates and local high school students from the Leslie and William McMorrow Neighborhood Academic Initiative to engage with the history of displacement and urban renewal on Bunker Hill through a week-long Zine Academy at the Los Angeles Public Library’s Octavia Lab. Students will move from archival research to speculative storytelling, imagining how the lessons of displacement might shape community organizing and housing policy. The program will culminate in Future Archive: Voices of Bunker Hill, a public reading and intergenerational dialogue at LAPL.
I TOO AM: ECO-MEDIA, IDENTITY & PLACE is a faculty and student–led project from the USC Annenberg School of Communication. The project will use site-specific experiential learning to help youth from three Los Angeles high schools explore environmental justice, identity, and belonging through field trips, media-making, and creative practice. Partnering with Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High School, Ambassador School for Global Leadership, and Downtown Magnets High School, students will examine how landscapes shape communities as living participants in Los Angeles and beyond. The program will build critical media literacy alongside a deeper sense of investment in and connection to the places young people call home.
REMEMBERING TOGETHER is a staff and student–led project from the Keck School of Medicine of USC, in partnership with USC Roski School of Art and Design, Alzheimer’s LA, and Las Fotos Project. The project will bring together people living with dementia, their caregivers, and USC students to co-create personalized visual memory albums through photography, storytelling, and creative design. Centering Black and Latino communities, who are disproportionately affected by dementia, the project will offer a dignified, culturally responsive space to honor identity, strengthen connection, and reduce caregiver stress.
RESTORING JOY IN POST-FIRE ALTADENA is a student-led project from the USC School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urbanism Department, and Sol Price School of Public Policy. In response to the Eaton Fire, the project will center on restoring joy and protecting cultural memory as Altadena rebuilds. In partnership with Community Compound, Altadena Earth Commons, Metabolic Studio, and the Altadena Earthseed Community Land Trust, USC graduate students will invite residents, artists, and community members to co-create place-based, interactive experiences across the neighborhood. Through a geocache-inspired framework, public walkabouts, workshops, and a community procession, participants will contribute to a shared memory archive and story map that serves as a living tool for cultural visibility and long-term stewardship.
THE INFINITE CITY: SKID ROW CINEMA COMMONS is led by a PhD student from the School of Cinematic Arts, Media Arts and Practice, is a participant-driven filmmaking project that pairs USC students with Skid Row residents to co-create short films as a shared civic practice. Rooted in reciprocal mentorship, it treats filmmaking as a collaborative tool for social justice and narrative equity, positioning everyone as equal Co-Producers—students share cinematic expertise while residents offer deep knowledge of local history and community ethics. In partnership with the Skid Row Arts Alliance (Los Angeles Poverty Department, The Sidewalk Project, Piece by Piece, and Urban Voices Project), the project spans eight months of bi-weekly story circles, workshops, and production labs hosted at the Skid Row History Museum & Archive. It will culminate in a free public screening in June 2027, with works archived online and at the museum.
USC KAUFMAN CONNECTIONS: PUSD COLLABORATIVE DANCE INTENSIVE is a faculty and student–led project from the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance. The program will bring 100 students from four Pasadena Unified School District Title I schools to USC for a dance intensive led by Kaufman BFA students, with mentorship from faculty and alumni. Born out of the Altadena fires of January 2025, the program will offer classes in Vernacular Jazz, Hip Hop, Contemporary Dance, and Musical Theater, culminating in a Spring Dance Festival performance at Pasadena High School. The program will work toward building a long-term partnership and a pipeline for PUSD students into future study and careers in the arts.
