Photo by Melissa BlackallPhoto by Melissa BlackallWe are an incubator of new work; a celebration of process; progress in motion.
We believe in equitable access to resources, opportunities, and experiences.
We serve Boston’s working artists; patrons; neighbors—living, learning, and thriving together.
BCA IS BOSTON ARTS, THRIVING.
Our Mission
Boston Center for the Arts (BCA) supports working artists to create, perform, and exhibit new works; develops new audiences; and connects the arts to community.
Our History
Opened to the public in 1970, Boston Center for the Arts has for five decades engaged creative community for public good. While the organization’s physical residence can be found in the historic South End, Boston Center for the Arts touches every part of Boston’s cultural ecosystem.
A leading force in the city’s cultural community, Boston Center for the Arts has supported thousands of individual artists, small organizations and performing arts companies, who add depth and dimension to the Boston arts ethos. Through residencies and programming, Boston Center for the Arts serves as an epicenter for an expanding cohort of artists working across all disciplines, and has catalyzed careers by providing fertile ground for experimentation and artistic risk-taking.
The artistic programs at BCA have evolved over the past 50 years, originally rooted in visual arts and theatre and expanding to encompass all forms and disciplines practiced by working artists across Boston. Through groundbreaking residency, exhibition, and performance programs, we have extended our reach and increased access points to BCA services for a wider number of artists in our communities.
Each year, we invite the world to experience provocative contemporary art exhibitions, award-winning theatre and dance performances, and arts experiences that defy categorization.
BCA also maintains some of Boston’s most unique venues including the iconic Cyclorama and the critically acclaimed Mills Gallery, inviting public use to support our arts-forward mission and directly benefit our programs. The net result is an arts presence that is world-class and befits the brilliantly evolving City of Boston.
The New England Art, Painting and Sculpture Show
The Cyclorama in the 1970s
A theatre production in the Cyclorama
Children playing in the Cyclorama
The Gettysburg Cyclorama at its opening
Our Land Is Indigenous Land
Boston Center for the Arts recognizes that we work, learn, and create on the ancestral land and unceded territory of the Wampanoag, Nipmuc, and Massachusett People. We affirm that it is important to understand, recognize, and honor the history of the Indigenous land that we occupy. We recognize that this acknowledgement is not enough and that it in no way undoes the legacies of violence and displacement of Indigenous people. We pledge to hold space and to take small but necessary steps that will pave the way to a future of decolonization and reconciliation.
