Hosted at BICA in collaboration with BICA School and Civic Arts (a project by teaching artist Robin Lee Jordan), Arts for Something! is an interdisciplinary program for young and emerging artists (ages 14–19) exploring the intersection of art and civic engagement.

Over the course of the series, participants will build creative skills—like screen-printing, zine-making, sewing, literary arts, and specialized visual arts—while learning how these tools can be used to support civic initiatives such as social justice, activism, and local community needs.

Young artists who commit to all eight sessions (with up to two excused absences) will have the opportunity to create and present a civic arts–inspired project in any medium. These projects will be featured in a collaborative zine and shared during a final exhibition and celebration in June.

Workshops take place the first Saturday of every month, October through May (skipping January), from 12–2 PM. 

Photography as a Daily Practice

Led by Nando Alvarez-Perez and Palmer Segner

Together, we'll embark on a photographic scavenger hunt through Buffalo’s West Side, using phone and digital cameras to explore our surroundings with fresh eyes. As we track down colors, textures, objects, and moments, we’ll reflect on how photography can be a fun daily habit—but also a tool for deeper awareness, helping us attune to the subtle rhythms of our environment and our community. More than documentation, we’ll approach photography as a practice of radical attention and self-expression: a way of seeing the world more clearly, and seeing ourselves more fully within it.