Outer Space Arcata is an arts and music center for the community.
Outer Space Arcata is an arts and music collective based in Arcata, CA – Wiyot land. We are a 100% volunteer run DreamMaker Project of the Ink People Center for the Arts operating since 2015. Our goals include community building, empowering youth, and promoting the understanding of oppression through education and creative expression.
We aim to serve as an incubator for artists, writers, thinkers, and the youth of our community. We seek to empower ourselves alongside our communities by providing an all-ages, safer, and sober space to explore affirmative solutions to problems rooted in systems of oppression.
We host diverse and wide-ranging programming, including educational workshops, classes, live performances, an in-house library, cooperatively run artisan gift shop, and gallery space.
We strive to create a respectful, accessible space through our inclusive and intersectional approach to community engagement and programming.
What do we do here?
We provide nurturing outlets for the community through low-cost, all-ages, safer space programming. This includes donation-based classes and workshops focused on skill sharing and radical thinking, weekly music events featuring local and touring artists, and organizational meetings with open attendance to encourage participation and inclusion at all stages of our project. At music events, we place a strong emphasis on highlighting the voices of marginalized peoples that would otherwise struggle to have an outlet for performing. Our artist cooperative was formed to give new and emerging artists affordable access to our gallery space to showcase their work. Our gift shop carries the work of local artists and craftspeople, featuring a wide variety of items such as handmade soap, locally grown tea, poetry books, art prints, local band CDs and tapes, and printed t-shirts.
How did we get here?
Historically, DIY spaces have served as a meeting place for folks to come together, discuss new ideas, make friends, practice resilience, engage in resistance, and find out about all the cool things going on in their communities.
We began as the Breakfast All Day Collective, with the goal of organizing all ages shows. As former students, locals, and artists/community members that fell in love with the area, we had come to see the unfulfilled need for a local arts center that is truly all ages. This began the nearly four year long process of establishing our organization in the community, partnering with The Ink People, an umbrella non-profit to become a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. We raised funds for a deposit and a first month’s rent with a month-long crowdfunding campaign in November of 2016. Eventually we found the ideal location near downtown Arcata, at the corner of 11th and M St, getting the keys on January 15, 2017. For three years, we hosted all ages music events, maintained an art gallery and a gift shop, and held a space for community group meetings.
In December of 2019, our building was sold, and we moved everything into storage while we searched for a new location. After several months, we relocated to our current location on the Arcata Plaza. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we did not host any in-person events until August 2022. When we did open our space, we maintained Covid-19 safety practices to promote accessibility. Since then, we have expanded to our current variety of events and activities.