Family Weekend Workshops: Craft, Create, Celebrate

Join us for Family Weekend Workshops: Craft, Create, Celebrate in conjunction with the community opening celebration of Desire, Knowledge, and Hope (with Smog) that will include Food Vendors: Trap Kitchen, Tacos y Mariscos El Samurai, and Not So Instant Coffee + DJ Sets by Chulita Vinyl Club. Reserve your timed tickets to the Opening Day Celebration.

Create a mixed-media collage, craft a cardboard birdhouse, or design a drawing infused with wordplay to make your own artwork to take home as part of the opening celebration of The Broad’s collection exhibition Desire, Knowledge, and Hope (with Smog). Inspired by Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Doug Aitken, and Ed Ruscha, artists in Desire, Knowledge, and Hope (with Smog), this Family Weekend Workshop takes inspiration from iconic downtown buildings and your own experience of the city to create an artwork that reflects your own personal Los Angeles. Keep the celebration going by rocking out to a DJ set by Chulita Vinyl Club as we create, and don’t forget to check out Desire, Knowledge, and Hope (with Smog) featuring LA-based artists on the first floor of the museum! 

Collage like Njideka Akunyili Crosby! Take inspiration from Akunyili Crosby’s painting “The Beautyful Ones” Series #11 and create a mixed media collage, incorporating her use of printmaking along the way. Use old magazines, newspapers, and pre-printed photos of popular Los Angeles landmarks like The Broad, the Hollywood sign, and more. Take it a step further and add a print-making element using foam printing plates. 

Akunyili Crosby uses many art techniques in her work, such as drawing, printing-making, collage, and image transfer. In this creative process, she combines memories, popular culture, and actual locations from both her home country of Nigeria and the United States to reflect on life as a Nigerian living away from her homeland. Connect with your culture and definitions of home as you explore your identity through some of Crosby’s techniques. 

Create your own birdhouse inspired by Doug Aitken’s plateau! plateau was a city made entirely out of hand-cut FedEx boxes that were made to look like brutalist and utopian-style buildings before being transformed by birds into an aviary. 

Take inspiration from buildings in and around downtown Los Angeles, like The Broad, the Bradbury Building, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and more to craft your own birdhouse building. Plan, sculpt, and create an inviting birdhouse using mailing boxes, cardboard tools, and a guide to the architectural style of Aitken’s buildings. Finish off your creation by decorating with repurposed shipping materials as we think about popular brands and the role they play in our lives.   

Wordplay like Ed Ruscha! Draw a place, space, or location that holds special meaning to you. Then, brainstorm words that connect with that space, unrelated phrases with personal meaning, or funny wordplay. Land on a word or phrase then draw and cut it out from cardstock to make a stencil or use stamp letters for the final touch on your drawing. 

Family Weekend Workshops take place outdoors on the East-West Bank Plaza at The Broad and offer free activities and workshops to engage with the art on view in the museum. Workshops give families the opportunity to make their own artworks to take home, inspired by the Broad collection and works on view in the museum. Family Weekend Workshops are free with advance ticket reservations. Ticketholders also have access to the museum galleries where they can use the family audio guide narrated by LeVar Burton and participate in a scavenger hunt. Walk-ups without reserved tickets may be accommodated, pending capacity.  

For Ages 3 and Up

This program is intended for children age 3+ and their families.

Image detail credits: (Left to right) Njideka Akunyili Crosby. "The Beautyful Ones" Series #11, 2023. Acrylic, colored pencil, and transfers. The Broad Art Foundation, (c) Njideka Akunyli Crosby. Doug Aitken. plateau, 2002. Aluminum lightbox, fluorescent lights, chromogenic transparency, acrylic. The Broad Art Foundation, (c) Doug Aitken. Ed Ruscha. Never Odd or Even, 2001. Acrylic on canvas. The Broad Art Foundation, (c) Ed Ruscha.