About Us
Mission Statement:
Bronx River Art Center (BRAC) is a culturally diverse, multi-arts, non-profit organization that provides a forum for community, artists, and youth to transform creativity into vision. Our Education, Exhibitions, Artist Studios, and Presenting Programs cultivate leadership in an urban environment and stewardship of our natural resource — the Bronx River.
History:
Bronx River Art Center (BRAC) was founded in 1987 to bring professional arts programming to a culturally underserved population. For over 40 years (including several years of arts programming under the umbrella of the first Bronx River Restoration project), this multi-arts center has filled the West Farms community of the Bronx with art and environmental experiences. Our programs are designed to encourage our residents to engage in creative activism towards the revitalization and future of their neighborhood.
Overview of Programs:
Education
We offer youth programs after school and on Saturdays. The classes are taught by professional artists, and they include Painting, Drawing, Cartooning, Ceramics, and more. Please refer to the education section for fees, fee waivers, and scholarships. We currently offer a free Teen Project Studio program as well.
Fee-based classes for adults are also available, as well as workshops for schools and community-based organizations.
Exhibitions
Our Exhibitions Program has become known for both its deft curatorial vision and its ability to produce ambitious, energetic exhibitions with ingenuity and immediacy. In recent years, we have exposed various paradigms of contemporary art to the litmus test of a local Bronx community and the cultural, economic, and social landscape that defines it. Our Exhibitions Program also provides a resource for artists and guest curators, by giving them a platform inside a reality that has not been fully acknowledged by academia or traditional institutions.
Presenting
Our year-round performing arts productions offer our local West Farms community an eclectic mix of cutting-edge talent from the Bronx and beyond. This series of interdisciplinary performances embraces popular, contemporary, experimental, and classically-inspired music, dance, performance art, and poetry. Additionally, our annual June Performing Arts Festival, “Bronx River Sounds," acts as a catalyst for emerging and established groups to showcase their work to a multicultural community in a comfortable and open setting.
Studio Space
Studio space is available to artists for up to two years, at below-market-value rates. BRAC’s non-living studios are accessible Monday to Friday, 10am to 10pm, and on weekends from 10am to 6pm. Each open plan studio has a window or windows, vary in size from 250 to 400 sq ft. and range in price from $425 -$650. Artists are selected on artistic merit based on studio availability on an ongoing, rolling basis. The Artist Studio Program aims to create a creative environment where professional artists of all backgrounds can communicate with one another and the community while pursuing their own work.
For more information about each of our programs, please contact the appropriate staff person.
Event Space Rentals:
Our Event Space is available for rentals.
Contact BRAC at info@bronxriverart.org or call 718.589.5819 to inquire about rentals prices and availability.
We have a beautiful ground-floor event space of approximately 2,000 sq. ft., with a capacity limit of 136 people. The space opens to a lovely patio and garden, with potential outdoor seating in the spring, fall, and summer. The event space is in the back half of the ground floor, and our public art gallery is in the front half. BRAC is open Monday through Friday, from 10am-6:30pm, and Saturday, from 10am-5pm. Guests can enter through the gallery during business hours; during off-business hours, they can enter through the side doors to our central vestibule. Our current rental rate is $1000 for half a day (four hours, with one hour for set-up and break-down) or $1,600 for a full day (seven hours, with one hour for set-up and break-down). Four hours is the minimal rental time.
There is seating for at least 80 people, several folding tables, a podium, and a sound system (for an extra fee). For a formal dinner, it is advisable to rent a greater number of tables, as well as more-appropriate chairs.
Selling liquor requires the renter's own one-day liquor license, and depending on the event, security guards may need to be hired for an extra fee. (For lecture or non-party performance events, our staff would be included in the fee.)
There is a pantry connected to the event space, with double-door windows opening to the space. Drinks could be sold or passed through these windows; food could also be walked through the pantry's side door and a short corridor to the space. The pantry is limited to a microwave, sink, and small refrigerator. No cooking is allowed on premises, aside from usage of the microwave. The space needs to be cleaned up back to its original state, or funds will be withheld from the deposit.
We need to provide two staff members for any event, and this is included in the rental costs. A third staffer may be necessary (for an extra fee) if the crowd or event is larger or more rowdy. If the renter wants access to the garden, they would need to place their own security at the riverside, to prevent anyone from falling in. The renter will need pick up the staffing costs if the event runs into overtime or late hours.
**Rates and regulations subject to change**
Contact BRAC at info@bronxriverart.org or call 718.589.5819 to inquire about rental prices and availability.
BRAC's Event Space is perfect for your special event!
The Bronx River:
The Bronx River flows across 23 miles through southern Westchester and the Bronx, offering a natural corridor for fishing, strolling, biking, boating, and nature study, amid the clamor and bustle of urban life. It is the only major watercourse within city limits that is not entirely tidal. Called Aquehung or “River of High Bluffs” by the Mohegan Indians who first lived and fished along it, the river attracted European traders in the early 1600s for the sleek, fat beaver that proliferated there. In 1639, a wealthy Swede, Jonas Bronck, purchased 500 acres from the Mohegans, and mills began to sprout up and down “Bronck’s River”. By the mid-1700s, as many as 12 mills were manufacturing paper, flour, pottery, tapestries, barrels, and snuff, powered by water-based energy.
The construction of the New York Central Railroad in the 1840s turned the valley into an industrial corridor, and by the end of the 19th Century, the Bronx River had degenerated into what one official commission called “an open sewer”. The history of the river since the 1880s has been a series of efforts to reclaim and protect it from the escalating forces of urbanization. Today, hundreds of thousands of commuters speed across the Bronx River, and dozens of industries flourish on its banks. But underneath the highways and elevated tracks, behind the warehouses, guardrails, and fences, the river still rushes energetically, providing a vital slice of nature for wildlife and Bronx citizens. In recent years, people have returned to the Bronx River, drawn back to a place that has remained true to itself, in a region where much else has changed.
Bronx River Art Center (BRAC) has been a member of the Bronx River Alliance since its inception in 2001, and prior to that, it served as a participant in the Bronx River Working Group since 1999. BRAC was formed out of the first Bronx River Restoration Project, during the mid-1970s, as an arts program to help engage the community in the revitalization and stewardship of this natural resource.
See how far the Bronx River and BRAC have come in the past decades with the dedicated support of volunteers, city, and community! Click the link below to watch a video documenting the first Bronx River Restoration Project.