The Docentitos Academy trains youths ages 9–12 years to be Weston Art Gallery docents.
During this fun-filled, two-week summer camp, students meet the artists and go behind the scenes of an exhibition to learn the inspiration and installation work that goes into creating a show. Daily activities include classes, artist talks, theater tours, workshops, installation and studio visits, script rehearsals, field trips, and a final project. Upon graduating, students lead tours of the gallery’s summer exhibitions.
The 2024 summer session will explore:
Sharareh Khosravani: Windy Land–Sharareh Khosravani is an Iranian-born artist based in Cincinnati, OH. Her work includes large-scale installations, sculpture, painting, interpretive work, and book illustrations. Much of her work explores concepts of loss and otherness and invites the viewer to consider the fragility of their position within a broader social context. Windy Land is a series of paintings, installations, and public events in response to the refugee crisis, addressing the urgent need for survival in a refugee situation.
Josie Love Roebuck: Embracing One’s Wholeness–Interdisciplinary Josie Love Roebuck (Newport, KY) addresses the contemporary complexity of identifying as biracial through symbolizing pain and triumph, exclusion and acceptance. The process of sewing together portraits has allowed her canvas to become her paper and her needle to become her pen. Roebuck draws upon the past and present to convey a story of her experiences and her family’s experiences. Through Roebuck’s personal examination of traumatic memory, familial history, and an ongoing critical investigation of imposed societal boundaries and definitions regarding race, she raises the question: How can one ever be “whole” if society thrives on racial division?
Kelly Kroener: A Place in Space–In this new body of installation-based work incorporating fiber and sculpture, Kelly Kroener (Cincinnati, OH) investigates the natural environment and our fraught relationship with it. The work, composed primarily of locally sourced materials, including wool, natural dyes, debris, clay, and wood, is influenced by the texture of her local geography, flora, fauna, and its confluence with pollution and climate change.
Docentitos 2024 Schedule:
Application Deadline: April 1, 2023 - CHECK BACK MARCH 1 TO DOWNLOAD THE 2024 APPLICATION
Personal Interview Date: TBD mid–April
Orientation with Docentitos and Families: Tuesday, May 28 from 6–7 pm
Docentitos Academy Session Dates
(Students must attend ALL dates below):
1st Day: Saturday, June 1 from 10 am–3 pm
1st Week: Monday, June 3 through Friday, June 10 from 7 am–3 pm
2nd Week: Monday, June 10 through Thursday, June 13 from 9 am–3 pm
Graduation/Opening Night:
Friday, June 14 from 6–8 pm
For more information, contact the Weston Art Gallery at (513) 977-4165 or westonartgallery@cincinnatiarts.org
Sponsors: Hearst Foundation, A.M. Kinney III, and Skyline Chili