The Schomburg Teen Curators Program

The Schomburg Teen Curators Program , which was a five-year grant funded program, was a unique after school art history and curatorial program that enrolls up to 30 high school students each year. The year-long tuition-free program used art education to increase the historical and cultural literacy of teenagers and promotes their intellectual and professional development through curatorial projects and aesthetic engagements with the Schomburg and other cultural institutions.

Each year the program culminated with a student-curated exhibition featuring their artwork alongside archival materials researched during the year within the Schomburg Center's five divisions. Through these processes students were exposed to behind-the-scenes work of museums and libraries (eg. collecting, preserving, archiving, and interpreting) and the pathways to professional careers in field. 

View the online exhibition Nonlinear Pendulums: Voyage Through Infinite Blackness.  Students in the 2019-20 , which was the final year for the Teen Curators Program, class drew their inspiration from the cultural aesthetics of AfroFuturism and AfroSurrealism.