SI believes that contemporary art can provide a platform for self-exploration, discovery, and creative risk taking for young adults. SI Teen and Young Adult programs provide a safe space to grow individually and collectively, and to make meaningful artwork and youth-centered programs together.
Past program topics have included: the art of wandering, rituals and magic, the artistic processes of making/doing/thinking, the architecture of education, time based media, site specific artworks, posters as artworks, environmental relationships, and more.
Launched in 2019, SI’s Teen programs invite students from NYC’s high-schools to participate in after-school sessions, whether in our self-directed Teen Council, our exploratory Teen Classes , or our summer intensive in partnership with NYC’s Department of Youth And Community Development. All participants are paid for class hours.
As of 2025, we have expanded to offer Young Adult programs, namely the Young Adult Arts Immersion Cohort (YAAIC). This mobile, dynamic, experiential engagement with contemporary art is designed specifically for young adults who have followed a non-traditional education path and/or are not currently enrolled in a formal academic program.
Please find more information below, including how to apply for available opportunities.
YOUNG ADULT ARTS IMMERSION COHORT (YAAIC)
Swiss Institute is pleased to announce a new educational offering for young adults ages 20-26. The Young Adult Arts Immersion Cohort (YAAIC) is a mobile, dynamic, experiential engagement with contemporary art designed specifically for young adults who have followed a non-traditional education path and/or are not currently enrolled in a formal academic program. The core of the course will be visits to galleries, performance and music venues, museums, archives, and community spaces, and be grounded in dialogue between cohort-members and those we meet along the way.
This peer-centered course will have a shifting and mutable structure to be determined by participants informed by shared interests and the art we encounter. Possible directions the cohort may take include: ongoing arts immersion, shared readings, writing and self-publication, research projects, and/or artmaking – but ultimately the path we take will be decided through group consensus.
No prior or specific skills/art knowledge is required. This program is ideal for participants with an openness to negotiate and work towards collaborative decision making who are interested in cultivating community through engagement with contemporary art. This is a process oriented program, which means we are not expecting participants to create a specific product.
The program will meet over 15 sessions from April through November.
We begin with a required half day orientation. This will most likely be on Wednesday, April 16th from 11am-3pm, with a break for lunch that will be provided.
The program continues with a month of two-hour weekly-ish meetings on the following Wednesday in the early evening hours, between 4pm and 6pm: April 23, April 30, May 14, May 21
We then shift to a twice-a-month meeting schedule for the duration with a break in late summer. Future dates are as follows: June 4, June 25, July 16, August 6, September 10, September 24, October 8, October 22, November 5, and November 19.
The course is offered at no cost to participants. All admissions/tickets will be covered by SI and a stipend of $200 will be provided for full participation in the program.
Please note: Some meetings may be outside of these scheduled times. While it is not mandatory to attend every meeting, we ask that all prospective participants be able to commit to a 9-month engagement overall and attend no less than 10 out of 15 sessions.
Applications must be submitted by March 30 using this form. The form offers options for written, recorded, or image-based answers to several questions. Our intention is to get to know you, your interests and passions, and how you might fit into the group. Please use whatever form/s of communication feel most accessible, exciting, and true to you.
Access statement: In this program we will be moving around in the city, using public transportation and seated or standing for a long amount of time. Sometimes, there will be artworks containing triggering or challenging content. We will give a content warning as much as we possibly can in these cases.
Masks are not required for this program but participants are welcome to wear one. Swiss Institute will make masks and covid tests available to all participants. All meetings on-site at Swiss Institute will have a HEPA air purifier running in the meeting space. All participants must be up-to-date with vaccinations including COVID-19 vaccines.
SI TEEN CLASS
SI’s weekly after-school teen classes are a paid ($16/hr) program during the school year for teenagers 15-18 years old. Each of SI’s teen classes are centered around a theme related to contemporary art, with lectures and discussions, close looking activities, art making, and individual and collaborative projects inspired by the theme.
Fall 2024 – Spring 2025: What’s now? / What now?
The ways we experience, define, and create the now, the contemporary, today, this current moment are vast and unwieldy. In this class we will use contemporary art to question our linear/fixed experience of time and think together towards understandings of time that are expansive, fluid, looping, unstable and continuously unfolding.
What can we learn from the ways the past saw the future? And what can we learn from the ways the future may look back at the past? We will use concepts of a speculative future as well as a speculative past to find ways of seeing the past, present and future simultaneously.
Our inquiries will begin with Energies at Swiss Institute and grow to encompass broader critical frameworks across geographies and mediums to consider: How are contemporary artists negotiating and articulating the ongoing and interwoven impacts of colonialism and ecological crisis?
Together, we will imagine a present (What’s now?) brimming with potential and liberation (What now?) and create visions of what a future informed by many histories could look like.
Weekly classes will involve discussions, art making, and deep exploration into artistic practices. We will tour Swiss Institute’s current exhibitions, go on trips to other arts and culture spaces, and meet guest artists who will share their journey and process with us.
Classes will meet on select Tuesdays, 4:30pm-6:30pm for 15 sessions between October 22, 2024 and April 8, 2025.
Applications are now closed. To be notified when applications are open late summer for the new season, please fill out this form.
SI TEEN COUNCIL
Swiss Institute Teen Council (SITC) is a paid ($16/hr) opportunity for teens of all backgrounds (ages 16-21 years old) to share their ideas, explore leadership and collaboration, and create original content centered on a teen and young adult audience. With the support of SI as our home base, SITC members can manifest shared ideas and bring them to life. SITC provides a safe space to grow individually and collectively, and to provide an environment to make meaningful work together.
SITC’s goals include: planning events and programs centered around a teen and young adult audience, fostering a creative environment and engage with the arts, including the visual and performing arts, design, and architecture, playing an advising role in future SI teen and young adult programs, and creating opportunities for SITC members to grow professional skills to help with future endeavors in various career paths.
*Teen Council gives priority to former participants of SI’s teen programs, but all are welcome to apply. Additionally, young people are welcome to apply to and participate in both Teen Class and Teen Council for the same season if accepted.
SITC will meet on select Thursdays, 4:30pm-6:30pm for 15 sessions between October 17, 2024 and April 3, 2025.
Applications are now closed. To be notified when applications are open late summer for the new season, please fill out this form.
SI TEEN SUMMER
SI’s summer teen program is presented in partnership with NYC’s Department of Youth And Community Development’s (DYCD) Summer Internship Program. This program is a paid opportunity offered to juniors and seniors in DYCD’s program, and aimed to foster career-readiness and exposure to contemporary art institutions and art professions. Students gain exposure by visiting art institutions around the NYC area, meeting with a variety of arts professionals, and participate in workshops designed by guest artists. Throughout the summer, students create independent and collaborating projects around a program theme.
Please email education(at)swissinstitute(dot)net with questions about any of our teen or young adult offerings.