Looking Back, Building What’s Next

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Our last fiscal year was one of movement, creativity, and connection.

Across the borough, Bronx artists kept creating. Organizations kept building. Communities kept gathering. And BCA kept working to ensure the people who make our borough culturally rich have the resources, recognition, and opportunities to keep doing what they do best.

Over the last year, BCA served nearly 14,000 artists and community members through our programs, while the work we funded reached an additional 23,000 community members across the Bronx.

Here’s a closer look at what we accomplished together.

We invested in Bronx artists and organizations.

Through programs including the Bronx Recognizes Its Own (BRIO), the Bronx Cultural Visions Fund (BCVF), the Community Engagement Grants (CEGs), and the Arts on the Block, we distributed just under $1 million dollars to 117 artists and cultural organizations across the borough.

We also advocated for greater investment in our communities through our partnership with the CEC's The People’s Money campaign, mobilizing Bronx artists to participate in the city’s participatory budgeting process.

By investing in Bronx artists and cultural organizations and advocating alongside our communities we help build a stronger cultural future for the borough.

We made space for Bronx stories.

Through the Longwood Arts Project, we presented exhibitions, programs, and a curatorial fellowship that amplified Bronx artists and made space for stories that challenged stereotypes and reflected the histories, experiences, and perspectives that shape our borough. Through our studio residency program at Governors Island, we also created space for Bronx artists to develop and share new work in a new setting.

BCA also engaged writers in the art of storytelling through creative writing workshops and a community-based artist residency. Those workshops culminated in the launch of the Bronx Memoir Project Volume X Anthology, where we celebrated 10 years of Bronx stories, voices, and creative expression.

Through programs like these, BCA continued to create platforms for artists to share work that reflects the complexity, beauty, and lived realities of the Bronx.

We helped artists build sustainable practices.

Being an artist means making the work and creating a practice that sustains it. It also means finding resources, building relationships, and understanding the business of being a creative professional. We hosted workshops and events to help artists do just that.

From our Artist Sustainability Workshop Series (ASWS), spring and summer forums, and Artists Engage convenings, we gave Bronx artists a chance to play as hard as they work recognizing just how important it is to be in community with each other while we learn, network, and create.

Supporting artists means investing not only in what they create today, but in their ability to continue creating tomorrow.

We danced again, again, and again.

We welcomed new leadership.

We also marked the beginning of a new chapter for BCA as we welcomed Jesús López-Jensen as our new Executive Director.

Jesús joins BCA with a deep commitment to the arts, cultural equity, and the communities that make New York City what it is. Just nine months into his new role, his leadership comes at an important moment for BCA as we continue to strengthen our organization, expand our impact, and imagine what’s next for the Bronx arts community.

We showed up for the Bronx.

BCA strengthened relationships across the borough and through the Borough Arts Council Collective, joining fellow arts councils to advocate for the vital role of arts and culture in communities across New York City.

Together, we raised our voices for the artists, cultural organizations, and communities we serve, demonstrating the power of collective advocacy and the importance of sustained investment in the arts.

From community events and partnerships to moments of collective action, we kept showing up not just to celebrate Bronx culture, but to advocate for the resources and recognition it deserves. Because the Bronx isn’t just a place where culture happens. It’s where culture is created.

And we’re still building.

This last year brought new energy to BCA as we looked at how our organization can better serve the artists and communities at the heart of our work. We strengthened our programs, expanded our communications, built new partnerships, welcomed new leadership, and continued thinking about what Bronx artists need not just now, but for the years ahead. There is more work to do, but looking back, we’re proud of how much this community accomplished together.

Help us keep building what’s next.

There are more artists to support, more ideas to fund, more stories to share, and more opportunities to bring the arts into communities across the Bronx.

When you give to BCA, you help provide artists with resources to create. You help community organizations bring meaningful arts experiences to their neighborhoods. You help us keep programs accessible and ensure that Bronx artists have an organization in their corner.

As we enter a new season, we invite you to invest in the artists and cultural workers who make this borough extraordinary.

Support the Bronx Arts Community.

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Image 1: BCA Grantees pose at the 2026 Community Engagement Grants (CEG) Grantee Recognition Ceremony at The Bronx Museum of the Arts. Image Credit: Adi Talwar

Image 2: Community members complete The People’s Money ballot at the 2026 Fair @ The Square.

Image 3: Shellyne Rodriguez pictured in front of her works at the opening reception of The 2021–2025 BRIO Retrospective at Bronx River Art Center (BRAC). Image Credit: Adi Talwar

Image 4: The 2026 Bronx Memoir Project Book Launch in BCA’s Flex Space. Image Credit: Adi Talwar

Image 5: Ron Baker, A.R. Cruz, Misra Walker, and Adiana Rivera (left to right) at the Can Seeds Grow in Concrete? Artist Talk on Governors Island.

Image 6: A snapshot from the 2026 Bronx Artists Summer Forum at BRAC.

Image 7: Attendees dance during the 2026 Artists Engage: Season in Bloom event in BCA’s Flex Space.

Image 8: Juan Usera performs with audience members at Palladium Style: Golden Era of Dance at Williamsbridge Oval Park. Image Credit: Adi Talwar

Image 9: Janice Tomlinson and Jennifer Beasty Acosta perform at the 2026 BX Creatives Connect event at Walnut Bar and Grill. Image Credit: Adi Talwar

Image 10: ROADMAPPIN’ (2026) performed by Kennedy Hill, Kar’mel Antonyo Wade Small, and Anthony C. Wyche III SOUNDWAV3 at the 2026 CEG Grantee Recognition Ceremony. Image credit: Adi Talwar

Image 11: BCA Executive Director Jesús López-Jensen. Image Credit: Marisol Díaz-Gordon

Image 12: The New York City Borough Arts Council Collective at the NYC Council hearing on Affordability in New York City’s Arts and Cultural Sector on February 9, 2026. From left to right: LMCC Chief Executive Officer and Artistic Director Moe Yousuf, Staten Island Arts Executive Director Jamaine T. Smith, BCA Executive Director Jesús López-Jensen, and Brooklyn Arts Council President and Executive Director Rasu Jilani. Image Credit: New York City Council

Image 13: Bronx cultural leaders at the NYC Culture and Arts Summer Celebration at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Image 14: A snapshot of 2025 Longwood @ Governors Island resident Amy Pryor’s workshop A Garden for Colonial Blues.

Image 15: Attendees at the Landscape as Witness: Art, Memory, and Place Artist Talk in BCA’s Flex Space.

Image 16: DJ Phearnone performs at the 2026 Bronx Recognizes Its Own (BRIO) Award Ceremony. Image Credit: Adi Talwar

Image 17: BCA staff at the 2026 CEG Grantee Recognition Ceremony. Image Credit: Adi Talwar

The Bronx Council on the Arts (BCA) is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) in partnership with the City Council; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; Arts Midwest and the National Endowment for the Arts; the Coalition of Theaters of Color; and NYS Assemblymember Michael Benedetto. Also supported in part by the Howard Gilman Foundation, the Scherman Foundation, the Altman Foundation, The Mertz Gilmore Foundation, The New York Community Trust, the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, the Tiger Baron Foundation, Amazon, BronxCare Health System, Northwestern Mutual Foundation, TD Bank, and Webster Bank.

BCA is ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant.

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