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:
SI TEEN CLASS
SI’s weekly after-school teen classes are a paid ($16.50/hr) program during the school year for teens 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, individual and collaborative projects, and trips to art spaces and visits with artists inspired by the theme. This class is designed for students to connect with themselves and their peers in creative ways. Teens will be asked to respond to prompts and contribute to conversations.
Fall 2025 – Spring 2026: Transformative Re-imaginings
How can we cultivate imagination with each other, and what might it lead us towards?
How, when and why do we transform personally and collectively?
In what ways can we use creativity, relationships and art to unravel and reconfigure? How will we transform in the process?
Our thinking, studying, and creating will be guided by contemporary artworks and social movements that work towards deep-rooted change and liberatory imagination.
Each week’s content will be animated by terms containing some variation of the prefix re-; the quality of going back, again, anew. This will link us to different strategies of re-imagining, such as re-naming, re-examining, and re-distributing. This accumulative (and playful) structure will provide us with abundant frameworks to create our own collaborative alchemy.
Classes will meet on select Tuesdays, 4:30pm-6:30pm for 17 sessions between October 21, 2025 and March 31, 2026.
Applications are now open! Applications will be accepted until 10:00AM on Wednesday, October 1. Students will be notified about their acceptance by October 3rd. Apply here!
This program will be facilitated by Anne Cousineau, Teaching Artist and Lead for Creative Pedagogy.
SI TEEN COUNCIL
Swiss Institute Teen Council (SITC) is a paid opportunity for teens and young adults ages 16-21 years old to explore leadership, collaboration, and self-agency. SITC provides a safe and brave space to grow individually and collectively. With the support of SI as our home base, SITC is a space where young people can cultivate their unique voices and engage in collaborative creative processes as a community of learners and artists.
This year SITC members will use queer histories, theory, and contemporary arts as a foundation for manifesting shared ideas and bringing them to life to create a program or event for their peers.
SITC’s goals include: engaging with queer histories, theory, and contemporary arts in a variety of disciplines, including but not limited to: visual and performing arts, design, music, writing and poetry, planning events and programs centered around a teen and young adult audience, providing opportunities for SITC members to grow professional and personal skills to support future endeavors in various career paths, and fostering a creative environment and grow participants’ own creative practices
*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.
Applicants do not need to be in school, and in fact we strongly encourage young people no longer in school to apply.
SITC will meet on select Thursdays, 4:30pm-6:30pm for 15 sessions between October 23, 2025 and March 26, 2026.
Applications are now open! Applications will be accepted until 10:00AM on Wednesday, October 1. Students will be notified about their acceptance by October 3rd. Apply here!
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.
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.
The course is offered at no cost to participants. All admissions/tickets will be covered by SI and a stipend is offered.
Applications are now closed. Please check back late 2025/early 2026 for more information for the 2026 season.