The CCC Project is a highly personalized, radically collaborative arts and humanities education platform for creative youth between the ages of 11 and 18. Our flagship program, the Creative Youth Collective, is committed to youth empowerment and activism through the creative process. The projects we produce and release help to build a future that we can all thrive in.

Our Values

The CCC Project stands for creativity, curiosity, and community, because we believe these values form the cornerstones of an engaged life.

With a foundation in mentorship and interdisciplinary arts education, we provide the framework to help young artists and writers discover and dive deeper into their interests, develop the skills needed to realize long term idea-driven projects, and most importantly, share their creative work with the communities that matter to them most.

“I loved creating a story that I wanted to tell and through the process, I learned even more about myself. I loved taking photographs and looking through my parents old photos, too. It was a great excuse to discover more about their past. I thought I didn’t have an interesting story to tell from my 17 years of life, but this experience showed me that I do.”

— Sofia P

Kathryn Ian Gentzke, founder & director

Kathryn is professional visual artist, musician, and an award-winning educator, recognized by the City and County of San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the San Francisco Legislative Assembly for her commitment to youth empowerment and civic engagement through education. She has facilitated interdisciplinary art, media, and writing workshops as well as youth mentorship and empowerment programs at cultural institutions in the San Francisco Bay Area, NYC, Upstate New York, and Berlin.

Her work has been featured in the Crossroads Film Festival (SFMoMA), and at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art (ICALive!), among other venues in the United States, Europe, and Russia. She holds an MFA in interdisciplinary studio practice from California College of the Arts in San Francisco, an MA in the theory and history of contemporary art from International University Bremen in Bremen, Germany, and a BFA in photography from the State University of New York at Buffalo.