What is Kayco?
KayCo Productions
KayCo Productions is a production company created to tie all of my creative endeavors and meaningful messages into one place.
Film is the intersection where art, advocacy, storytelling, culture, history, and even dog training can meet. It gives me the ability to bring together the many things I love and the many things I have spent my life learning into one creative space.
As you may have seen in my other “About” section, the name KayCo comes from a few places.
When I was in kindergarten, I told my teacher that I wanted to be a whale. But not just any whale—I wanted to be Free Willy.
Willy’s real name was Keiko.
Fast forward through the film that is my life. After hosting some amazing events and looking back at everything I had become and everything I had accomplished, I found myself thinking, I’ve been so many things and I’ve done some pretty cool stuff. I wonder what else I will do and be?
My little sister looked at me and asked:
“When are you gonna be a whale?”
And suddenly, it all clicked.
My name is KAYcee COlburn.
KayCo.
I have always been the whale.
KayCo began as a gallery and creative space that worked to fill a major cultural gap in Chautauqua County. Changing that direction was not an easy decision. But I came to realize that the gallery was only one expression of what KayCo could become.
The work had outgrown the walls.
Today, KayCo Productions gives that work room to move.
Through film, production, art, cultural consulting, storytelling, performance, research, animal work, and creative collaboration, KayCo brings seemingly different passions together to create something bigger than any one of them could create alone.
We believe in creative freedom. We believe in telling meaningful stories. We believe in preserving history and culture while making space for new voices and new ideas. And we believe that you do not have to choose just one thing you’re meant to be.
Sometimes you have to become the whale.
We essentially unchained the orca.
We freed Willy.