The mission of the Black Rock Arts Foundation is to support and promote community-based interactive art and civic participation. For our purposes, interactive art means art that generates social participation. The process whereby this art is created, the means by which it is displayed and the character of the work itself should inspire immediate actions that connect people to one another in a larger communal context.

One of the lessons  learned from Burning Man is to value temporality. Placing art in public context for short periods of time reduces planning overhead and simplifies funding and organizing in comparison with permanent installations. Yet such a project still inspires those who help to realize it and who encounter the completed artwork while generating a dialogue about the meaning of art and its contributions to community vitality.

Inclusivity is another principle underlying our work. Projects come to fruition through interaction of artists with volunteers, officials, community members, and many other individuals not traditionally identified as art makers and blur artificial boundaries separating participants. Debate and dissent sparked by a new work can encourage discussion and new understanding, along with a sense of ownership in a community’s activities and environment.

BRAF promotes a spirit of experimentation. All of our work takes place within a society in transition and wrestles simultaneously with many social issues in local, regional, and global contexts, in changing rural and urban landscapes, and under the strain of significant environmental pressures.  Projects that create and place interactive public art address these conditions and create opportunities to discover productive ways to resolve them.

BRAF values and continually works to promote connectedness. We look to art as a way to connect individuals and communities across boundaries of geography and point of view.

Biographies of  the Board of Directors

List of Advisory Board Members

Case Statement

Tax Information

REBAR, an artist collective and recipients of a grant  through our  Grants-to Artists program, sit atop their pedal powered park, created for Park(ing) Day 2007.  Park(ing) Day, an event created by REBAR in 2005, has gathered thousands of participants around the globe to transform ordinary parking places into  temporary public parks ... at least until the meter runs out. Photo: Sasha Wizansky.