BAVC Media: Who We Are Today

Dear Friends,

Many of us have been rethinking everything – from the meaning of life, to our jobs, where we live, our connection to family and friends, to our eating habits. It’s an intense moment of change and reinvention.

At BAVC Media, we’ve been doing the same, and have some exciting news to share with you. BAVC Media, Bay Area Video Coalition, is now BAVC Media. 

This name holds onto the shorthand way that BAVC Media has been known for years, it honors our past, and it highlights the fact we see media as ever-changing. BAVC Media is still all about video – but we also support audio production, gamedesign, animation, emerging technologies, and more – centered in a social justice and equity framework, as we have for many years.  

Why The Refresh?

We’ve been working on this collaborative project over the last year and a half, led by my colleagues Isa Nakazawa and Brittney Réaume, starting with a reimagining of our logo and visual identity by designers Darian Newman, Alia Moussa, Eric Heiman, and the *TBD team at California College of the Arts, followed by a complete website redesign and creative web development by consultant and long-time Reel Stories supporter joi foley, all with support from the whole BAVC Media staff. As a crew of evolving tech nerds, artists, storytellers and activists, we’ve struggled to find a cohesive visual “container” to unify our work. Our intention behind this (re)design is to center the extraordinary makers in our community and let their work show you what BAVC Media is all about.

How We’re Thinking About Space

In a similar way, we’re letting go of the idea that we can achieve all of our goals from one central mothership in San Francisco. We’ve had an epic run at our fantastic space at 2727 Mariposa Street in San Francisco, but this period was coming to an end, even before the pandemic. While our heart still lives and thrives in San Francisco, many of the communities that we serve have moved to other parts of the Bay due to affordability issues. Also, technology has changed the way that we make media. We can do so much from home virtually on our laptops. And lastly, we appreciate that we are more impactful working in collaboration with mission-aligned partners, rather than standing alone. Adopting a more nuanced facilities plan will enable us to dedicate more resources to things like training, grants and stipends, and better wages for our staff. Please stay tuned about our upcoming facility plans!

More Questions Than Answers

Like so many, we’ve been doing a lot of self-reflection. How can we be more impactful? Are we applying our mission and resources (people, ideas, passion, relationships, platforms) in ways that are effective and meaningful? How well do our refreshed values of “Radical Access”, “Collective Spirit” and “Empowered Creativity” translate into our programs on-the-ground? Whose stories are being heard? And are we listening?

These are just a few of the questions that continue to inspire and stretch us at BAVC Media.

Thank you for being part of our evolving ecosystem of media makers. I hope that you’ll join us at a virtual or in-person event, class or program soon. If you’d like to financially contribute to community media making at BAVC Media, you can do it here, and if you’d like to reach out to me, please drop me a line.

Cheers to media makers, and to change,
Paula Smith Arrigoni
Executive Director, BAVC Media