6546 Montgomery Road
Cincinnati, OH 45213
Teen Artists for Change Program / Tellus Zine
The mission of Kennedy Heights Arts Center is to enhance the life of the surrounding community through arts and cultural experiences that embrace diversity, foster creativity and build community. Founded in 2004, the community arts center provides arts education programs, exhibitions, and cultural events for more than 5,000 youth and adults annually.
A grant from the Dater Foundation supported the Tellus Zine program. Tellus is a digital publication, led by an all-youth editorial board, showcasing visual art and creative writing by young adults from across Greater Cincinnati. Tellus Zine was developed as an off-shoot of Kennedy Heights Arts Center’s Teen Artists for Change program. Tellus is a Latin word meaning “Earth” and also can be broken down into the invitation: “Tell us!” The students selected the name for their publication because of this double meaning.
Young adults ages 13-21 are invited to creatively express topics and issues that they care about through art forms including drawing, painting, photography, video, animation, music, creative writing, and nonfiction writing, and submit their work to be included in the semi-annual online zine. The theme of the first issue is “In Your Element.” 22 young adults throughout Greater Cincinnati submitted creative works exploring questions like: What defines you? What or where is your comfort zone? Where do you feel most at home? Submissions were reviewed by the Tellus Zine Editorial Board, which consists of 14 diverse students from 8 Greater Cincinnati high schools.
The board met regularly from September 2019 (switching to online meetings in April 2020) to develop the concept for the zine, invite and review submissions, put together and promote the publication. The students also created social media accounts for Tellus and have been posting regularly to share content and connect with teens. The release of the first edition of Tellus was delayed one month due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The teens were in the midst of reviewing artwork submissions and creating the online zine/website when Kennedy Heights Arts Center was forced to close when stay-at-home orders were enacted in Ohio. Although this affected our progress somewhat, the group quickly transitioned to online/zoom meetings and completed the project working remotely. And they planned and held an online release party!
Additional activities included: regular participation in the Democracy & Z podcast, creative projects, guest artist talks, peer-led group critiques, technical workshops and field trips to artist studios and zine and art book fairs to learn about editorial skills and different art forms. One-hundred percent of participating board members reported gaining new skills as a result of the program; fifty-five percent of participating students reported that participation enabled them to set and achieve personal goals; and fifty-five percent of participating students reported gaining increased self-confidence.
Program specific web site: www.telluszine.org
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