LOCUST ART BUILDERS 2024 FINAL REPORT
Summer Art Intensive Sessions: June 17-July 20, 2024
LAB exhibition on view: July 20-August 3, 2024
LOCUST ART BUILDERS 2024
Starting June 17, 2024, twenty-one students from high schools across Miami met for the 14th year of Locust Art Builders Summer Art Intensive. The talented and ambitious group of aspiring young artists came together for five weeks to collaboratively build an exhibition in our Project Room.
The 2024 LAB students and Co-Directors and Lead Mentor Artists, Loni Johnson and Chire Regans, at the Opening Reception for the 2024 LAB Student Exhibition titled, HOME OF THE FREE, LAND OF THE LOST.
Held for the second year at our home in Little River, this year’s LAB was led by Co-Directors and Lead Mentor Artists, Loni Johnson and Chire Regans. In-person sessions took place Monday through Thursday June 17-July 21 from 10am-2pm with optional early drop-off and late pick-up hours made available this year in addition to the opening night on July 21 and required deinstallation on Aug 3, 2024..
The Lead Mentors provided students with daily lessons, activities and challenges, as well as presentations and hands-on workshops with Miami-based practicing artists and arts administrators including: Eddie Brown, Shawna Moulton, Kerry Phillips, Laura Novoa, Cynthia Cruz, and James Klynn.
Students learned how to engage in respectful debate as they developed a theme for their show in collaboration with their peers, experimented with multiple types of tools and media to support their vision, and received feedback during weekly skills-building workshops and the annual Mentor Meet + Greet Brunch.
The students’ ideas came to life as they collaboratively built an immersive installation they titledHOME OF THE FREE, LAND OF THE LOST, which opened with a reception for more than 200 of their family and friends and the public on July 20, 2024.
2024 LAB FOCUS AND STUDENT RESOURCES
Locust Projects strives to keep the LAB experience intimate so that the Lead Mentor Artists can focus on each student’s individual needs, interests, and tailoring their creative growth.
Each year staff and LAB Co-Directors consider survey responses and feedback from the previous year’s LAB program in developing curriculum as the needs of students is ever evolving in an ever-changing world. The 2023 post-program surveys continue to emphasize the impact of the opportunity to meet and work with students representing different backgrounds, perspectives, schools, grades, experience levels, artistic styles, preferred mediums, and more as well as the process of working together collaboratively to realize their collective vision.
With this in mind, the Co-directors structured the first weeks of the program to focus on getting to know one another, setting collective values for their experience, establishing positive communication skills and how to participate in respectful debate. With a supportive environment established, we see students with more experience or access to professional art training work with students whose skills were less developed, learn from each other, encourage each other, challenge each other, and ultimately create and build something original together.
This year’s LAB program included students from:
• Don Soffer Aventura High School
• Downtown Doral Charter Upper School
• Hialeah Senior High School
• Miami Arts Charter School
• New World School of the Arts
• TERRA Environmental Research Institute
Locust Projects seeks to make the LAB experience equitably accessible to all students by offering access to art supplies and travel stipends.
LAB BUILDERS BAG
Each student received a LAB Builders Bag filled with supplies, including:
• Jerry’s Artarama art supplies for exploring their creativity and completing art challenges
• Special edition t-shirt designed by the current Main Gallery exhibiting artist Kerry Phillips
TRAVEL STIPENDS
• With parental schedule conflicts, the cost of gas, lack of mass transit options across county, and ride-share being prohibitive to participation for some students, all students have access to receive travel stipends to offset the cost transportation to and from LAB and home.
• More than 35% of the students requested travel stipends totaling $3,000. The Lead Mentor
• artists were also provided a travel stipend based on federal mileage rates in addition to their fee.
2024 CO-DIRECTORS AND LEAD ARTIST MENTORS
Loni Johnson, a Miami native and multi-disciplinary artist who uses movement and ritual to create healing spaces for Black women and explores how ancestral and historical memory informs how, when and where we enter and claim spaces. She received an Ellies Social Justice Award in 2021 from Oolite Arts, recognizing her significant contributions to the visual arts and her impact on the community.
Chire Regans (AKA Vanta Black), known for her poignant murals and social justice activism, received the inaugural Ellies Social Justice Award from Oolite Arts in 2020 for her project “Say Their Names,” a public memorial honoring victims of gun violence. Chire’s work is a powerful platform for community advocacy and storytelling, making her an integral voice in the fight for racial equity.
“Working with the 2024 LAB cohort has been a wonderful journey through exploring perceived norms within artmaking and empowering these young people to challenge these norms. They have been very receptive to our guest artists’ presentations/workshops and using their insight to shape how they approach their installation. Loni and I have armed them with tools from our own practices to help ground them as they navigate artistic career paths.”
- Chire Regans
WORKSHOPS AND GUEST SPEAKERS
Artists, curators, and other arts professionals led workshops, offering mentorship by sharing personal experiences in their creative professions and exposing the students to new mediums and processes.
Speakers and workshops during the 2024 LAB program included:
• Eddie Brown, actor, Yale School of Drama alum, and YoungArts promoter
• Shawna Moulton, multi-disciplinary artist & art educator
• Kerry Phillips, Locust Projects current exhibiting artist
• Laura Novoa, Assistant Director of Programs + Community Engagement at Bakehouse Art Complex
• Cynthia Cruz, digital artist and past Locust Late @the DiLL speaker
• James Klynn, poet, songwriter, educator, and organizer
• Tom Mickelson, Locust Projects Cheif Preparator and Facilities Operations Manager
• Ema Ri, artist and skills mentor and installation support
FIELD TRIP
Students participated in a parent-approved field trip to the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) where both of the Co-Directors have served as Teaching Artists giving students exclusive behindthe-scenes access to the inner workings of Miami’s major museum.
During their daylong field trip, which was a first visit to the museum for many, students met with various museum staff and learned about their roles and career path. The trip included a tour of Calida Rawles’ exhibition, “Away with the Tides,” with curator Maritza M. Lacayo.
MEET THE 2024 LAB INTERNS
From right to left:
Emilio, our research intern, is a recent graduate from New World School of the Arts and the University of Florida, where he received his BFA in Graphic Design this May. He’s aiming to make waves in the entertainment industry!
Tainá, a former LAB student and current summer intern, is a rising sophomore at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, specializing in sculpture and printmaking. Her creativity knows no bounds!
Dani, another former LAB student and now an amazing member of the Locust team all yearlong, is a rising sophomore studying environmental science at Miami Dade College. An alum of the Girl Scouts of Tropical Florida, Dani is also passionate about astronomy!
A’niyla, another of our summer stars, is a rising sophomore at Design and Architecture Senior High. She has a flair for digital art and a love for cooking!
Sofia, our talented videography intern, is a rising junior at American University in DC majoring in Business and Entertainment with a specialization in Film. She’s all set to shine in the entertainment industry, with interests in drawing and swimming!
AN INTERN’S PERSPECTIVE ON LAB
Every year our LAB College-level Summer interns are tasked with all aspects of creating a documentary video for LAB. This year and last we added a Blog overview of the student’s LAB experience from their perspective to their final project assignment. Capturing daily activities and moments over LAB’s five-week run and scenes from the opening and the LAB student final exhibition, their final video gives a behindthe-scenes look at one of Miami’s most impactful teen summer art pre-college programs. Published on our YouTube Channel and Closer Look Blog it also gives our interns an incredible professional achievement to list on their resumes.
The 2024 LAB Documentary was shot and edited by Sofia, with supplemental interviews conducted by Tainá. Our third LAB Intern, A’niyla, joined the team to provide support for our incredible LAB Co-Directors, artists and educators, Loni Johnson and Chire Regans.
"Guided by the inspirational leadership of Chire Regans and Loni Johnson, the students were immersed in transformative group dialogues, invigorating art workshops, and enlightening presentations by local artists. These experiences shaped their creative expression, leading to the powerful culmination in their exhibition, Emerging Voices. The title speaks volumes about the students' growth throughout the program, embodying their newfound confidence and artistic identity."
- Sofia
SUMMER 2024AN ILLUSTRATED INTERNSHIP
LAB research intern Emilio joined us this summer as part of our commitment to inspiring the next generation of creatives with paid high-school and college-level internships to support the LAB Summer Art Intensive and exhibition programs. Interns are given project assignments due at the end. Emilio’s project was to document his experience at Locust Projects in a creative way over his five-week internship. He’s aiming to make waves in the entertainment industry and, from what we saw this summer, we think he’s going to do great!
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL POST
Inspired by seeing Trenton Doyle Hancock’s “I Made a Mound City in Miami Dade County” exhibition at Locust Projects in 2019, LAB research intern Emilio decided to create a mini graphic novel titled, Summer 2024: An Illustrated Internship.
LAB MENTOR MEET + GREET BRUNCH
JULY
16, 2024
The Mentor Meet + Greet Brunch hosted by the LAB students welcomed practicing artists, teachers, creative professionals, and other LAB supporters.
The students each introduced themselves, answered questions about their work in-progress, shared their experiences with the program and how they have built new relationships. With the Meet + Greet happening during the crucial final install week, they were also able to talk through ideas, get tips on execution, and problem solve with the mentors.
The event provided a special opportunity for the students to network and learn more about arts careers while gaining confidence and becoming more comfortable speaking about their work and presenting it to the public.
HOME OF THE FREE, LAND OF THE LOST
STUDENT EXHIBITION ON VIEW JULY 20 - AUGUST 3, 2024
Each year’s LAB exhibition evolves as a unique and timely reflection of the current issues and ideas impacting the youth in each cohort. “This year’s theme, LAND OF THE FREE, HOME OF THE LOST, provides us the opportunity to represent, deconstruct, and then criticize the American dream and its components. The nuclear family is a staple of this era, a time where economic and societal harvest was built upon the suffering and labor of those deemed unfit for the perfect America. Discredited as shameful and taboo, the issues that plagued these families were set aside and left to rot under the seemingly gleaming carpets. The result is prevalent throughout LAND OF THE FREE, HOME OF THE LOST, the American ideals crumbling throughout the wallpaper and before you even reach the doorstep. Fully interchangeable, the two concepts of dollhouse and American dream are nothing but facades. The grey area of morality, seeping throughout the house, are reminders of the problems that plague society and stain the path of progress.”
- the 2024 LAB Student Artists
PROCESS & INSTALLATION
The students worked hard during the last week of installation to execute their exhibition. Collaboration was the driving force of their final push to complete their show in time for opening night on July 20.
OPENING NIGHT
JULY 20, 2024
Family and friends attended the opening reception for HOME OF THE FREE, LAND OF THE LOST and watched the students receive their certificates for participation which many use in applications for college.
POST PROGRAM EVALUATION
Post-assessment surveys administered at the end of the program showed that students were challenged when having to compromise with their peers, but through collaboraive activities and the group exhibition they learned how to connect and embrace their differences. The LAB students also learned new artistic skills in the mediums of sculpture, graphite drawing, installation construction, paper mache, bookbinding, and performance art. Some of their favorite aspects of LAB include the guest speakers, the art workshops, exhibition preparation, and the whole collaborative nature of the intensive.
POST-PROGRAM EVALUATION QUOTES
“It’s been very interesting to work with so many different people who are so talented and it’s been almost humbling to be so collaborative.”
Student Survey Take-Aways:
The students all mde a point to mention how much they loved the stop-motion animation workshop with Cynthia Cruz!
Students agreed that working in a large group was one of the more challending aspects of the program, and untimately most rewarding.
“Working with so many people started off hard because if you’re hard headed like me, you have one idea you want to stick to. However I cannot be grateful enough it happened because we made one enormous idea come to life, and it really made me realize that even if you don’t like one individual idea, it plays a beautiful role in the outcome.”
CLICK IMAGE BELOW TO WATCH BRIEF TESTIMONIALS.
GETTING SOCIAL
CONNECTING WITH OUR COMMUNITY
8 LAB-focused Instagram posts had more than 15,000 impressions and were visible to over 21,000 followers.
8 LAB-related Facebook posts had over 2,500 impressions and were visible to over 6,500 followers.
Six eNewsletters highlighting the LAB program including two dedicated eNewsletters were sent to our database of 18,536 emails from local, national, and international visitors.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
After students complete the program, we offer opportunities for mentoring, internships, and letters of support and recommendation towards college and jobs. LAB alumni have gone on to attend top art schools, including Cooper Union, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Parsons School of Design, and Rhode Island School of Design. LAB Alumni stay connected to Locust Projects, often returning as interns, visitors, or artists, and are consistently forwarded opportunities and information specific to young artists.
Room to Rise, a multiyear Whitney Museum-led study of immersive art programs like LAB, documents the powerful effects these programs have on teens, including lasting engagement with arts and culture, significant personal and professional development, and increased leadership skills and civic engagement. We see this in action firsthand as we stay
Locust Art Builders: Summer Art Intensive for Teens 2024 is made possible through lead support from: The Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners, The Children’s Trust; State of Florida through the Division of Arts and Culture and the National Endowment for the Arts; Susan and Richard Arregui, Berkowitz Contemporary Foundation, The Kirk Foundation, Miami Salon Group, Cowles Charitable Trust, and the Friends of the Next Generation for their invaluable contributions.
IN MEMORIUM
Thank you to Terri Harris who has printed the LAB T-shirts and Bags for years.
