About East Bay Creative Lab
East Bay Creative Lab is Oakland's home for hands-on learning and creative exploration.
We offer afterschool classes and camps for kids, workshops for adults, school residencies, and field trips that bring the arts and sciences to life for students across the East Bay. Our space also hosts community exhibitions and is available to rent for events, gatherings, and creative projects of all kinds. Whatever brings you through our doors, we're here to help you learn, make, and connect.
Mission
To cultivate curiosity and creative exploration for youth through the arts and sciences, inspiring big ideas and illuminating the everyday connections between them.
Vision
A hub where our community can come together to learn, create, and explore with best in class materials and tools in an interactive space built for discovery.
Values
Creativity: We champion imagination as a cornerstone of learning, designing programs that spark innovation and invite bold, creative inquiry.
Inter Connectivity: We build deep community connections through artistic discovery, showing students the everyday links between art, science, and each other.
Equity: We invest in equitable access and representation in the arts and sciences, ensuring every young person has the chance to explore, create, and lead.
A Rich History
For over 70 years, we've cultivated curiosity and creative exploration through the arts and sciences.
After World War II, members of the Junior League sought new ways to serve the community. An advisory committee of fifty-two educators, scientists, artists, government officials and community leaders recommended working with children in creative fields to provide new interests, encourage talent, and foster understanding in a climate of common interests.
The Oakland Recreation Department became interested in the project and invited the Junior Center in Mosswood Park, creating a unique alignment of public and private agencies. In May 1954 The Junior Center opened its doors.
In 1992, at the invitation of the Mayor, the Junior Center relocated to Oakland’s Lakeside Park. This new location along the shores of beautiful Lake Merritt, next to the bird sanctuary and public gardens, provided a wealth of new art and science resources.
Today we continue to build on our legacy of over 72 years by striving to fulfill our potential as an essential community resource.
Partnerships
Our Generous Funders
Same Heart. New Name.
For decades, we were known as the Junior Center of Art and Science.
That name did its job, but it never quite captured the spirit of what happens inside our walls: the messy, joyful, hands on process of making, testing, building, and imagining. So we've become Creative Lab, a name that reflects who we've always been at heart, a space of experimentation where art and science intersect and new ideas take shape.
This isn't a departure from our roots, it's a return to them. The same commitment to equitable access, culturally responsive teaching, and experiential learning that has guided us for over 70 years still drives everything we do. Creative Lab is simply a name that finally sounds like us: playful, inclusive, and endlessly curious about what comes next.
Community Impact
At the heart of everything we do is a simple belief: creativity is built from courage, imagination, compassion, and curiosity.
Through our programs, we've seen firsthand how arts and science education builds resilience and empathy in our students, giving them the tools to express complex ideas, collaborate with confidence, and grow into thoughtful, engaged members of their community.
One of my favorite moments is when students realize and embrace that they are artists. They often hear about being an artist as some far off adult career path. When they realize that they can be an artist RIGHT NOW they often vocalize it excitedly to me and you can see a sparkle in their eyes as they take that new found confidence into art class.
The teenagers in my class talk about the pressure they feel everywhere else in their life. Our art class is a break and a reprieve for students from what they deal with outside of class: family issues, lots of different social pressures, bullying.