• Destination Crenshaw – set for completion in 2024 – will be a 1.3 mile outdoor museum and cultural hub with five parklets, permanent and temporary public art, and space for performances. It is a public-private model for cultural placemaking, cultural place-keeping, and community building. When completed, Destination Crenshaw will be the largest Black public art project in the U.S.

• The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures opened in 2021.

• The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is undergoing a major renovation with a budget of $750 million, most of which has been raised through philanthropic donations and County funds. The museum will also introduce a satellite campus in South LA.

• Los Angeles is investing in youth and educational cultural participation through increased virtual arts and cultural programming; arts education classes; and expanded outdoor art programming. A number of new Junior Arts Centres are currently in development including the Downtown Junior Arts Centre, Highland Park Junior Arts Centre, Oakwood Junior Arts Centre, and Manchester Junior Arts Centre.

• The revitalisation of the historic Watts Towers has transformed the public spaces around the Watts Towers Art Centre and campus and include an outdoor classroom space, performance areas, walking paths, and interactive public artworks.

• Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, sponsored by director and philanthropist George Lucas and designed by Beijing studio MAD, will open in 2025 in Exposition Park.

• LA28, the Los Angeles Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games 2028, is organising an Olympic Arts Festival to precede the Games as well as a ten-year cultural infrastructure development programme coordinated by DCA.

• The LA Philharmonic YOLA Campus (Youth Orchestra in Los Angeles) opened in Inglewood in October 2021 bringing the programme, led by the international star conductor and artistic director Gustavo Dudamel, to another part of the LA region.

• The Vision Theatre, the City’s historic theatre located in the Leimert Park Village neighbourhood in South Los Angeles, is being renovated as a community resource, through the programming of diverse world-class theatre, music, dance, film productions and educational events, along with a variety of cultural forums, reaffirming its place as a cultural hub and catalyst for economic development and revitalisation.

• LADAC’s Civic Art Division has completed or has underway several large civic art commissions for County health agencies, hospitals, and mental health facilities, bringing civic art to public capital infrastructure, integrating the healing power of the arts in the health environment, and creating a welcoming and culturally inclusive setting for clients and communities.

• A suite of regional cultural policies were developed by the LADAC and adopted by LA County Board of Supervisors, setting forth cultural infrastructure in policy direction and goals. Following the 2017 adoption of the Cultural Equity and Inclusion Initiative, these include the LA County New Regional Blueprint for Arts Education, a Countywide Plan for Elevating the Role of the Arts in Criminal Justice Reform, and the new Countywide Cultural Policy.

© Images Courtesy of Getty/Canva