Socrateens is a teen arts program focused on giving students the opportunity to cultivate and expand on their artistic abilities. Students are introduced to wood, metal, clay, paper mache, power tools etc as a means of art making. Each week students are given a different task or a continuation of a previous task. At the end of the year students are put into an incubator like process where they are building work to be presented. This process of art making an expansion was very useful and effective for Bisram, he focused on different means of creating and was able to apply them at the end of the year to create different projects converting a multitude of emotions and ideas. This way of art making seeped its way into Bisrams creative process as a dancer and teacher. Socreateens was a pivotal moment in Bisrams life, they spent three years in the program and almost 2 years as a Socrates Employee.
During their time in Socrateens they were a part of the Cohort that built What’s Missing, an experimental sculpture for the Monuments Now exhibition. The exhibition was aimed towards building monuments that are relevant to our current culture, not monuments that depict oppressors and colonizers but monuments that question these people and praise strong people of color and women who played important roles in history. The Socrateens cohort of 2020 built a Monument which questioned if people knew the relevance of these sculptures and who they are. The cohort did vinyl cut out of Christopher Columbus with him missing from the image. The goal was to see if people could guess who the monument was based on the cutout and to prove if they are relevant/important enough for people to pay attention to.
This was the first time Bisram had presented work in a professional manner and was the official start of their career. Socrateens provided a foundation for Bisrams art making and professional abilities. It was through Socrateens that Bisram met Audrey Dimola and Sarah Cameron Sunde, two of their mentors and key parts of their current artistic ventures. Dimola later became a partner in Bisrams creations, and the originator of For The Depths of Us and Sunde created 36.5 A durational Performance with the Sea, and together they created Kin to the Cove. If it wasn’t for Socrateens Bisram would not have created some of their current relationships or projects.
"Socrateens is a year-long experimental art-making program for eight teens selected from various NYC high schools. Meeting weekly at the Park, the Socrateens work closely together to develop sculpture-making, drawing, performance, and photo/video skills. The program also includes visits to artist studios, museums, and galleries.
The 2019-2020 Socrateens contributed to the ‘MONUMENTS NOW‘ exhibition at Socrates with a multifaceted project that included a zine titled ‘Monuments Decoder‘ and a collectively-realized sculpture installation, ‘What’s Missing.’ They also created an exhibition of their own artwork for the Park’s Instagram account, @socratespark.
On View: October 10, 2020 – April 4, 2021
The final part of the exhibition, MONUMENTS NOW: The Next Generation, looks to the future with a multi-faceted project comprising a sculpture installation and zine realized collectively by local high school students participating in Socrateens – an experimental art-making program facilitated by the Park’s Director of Education, Douglas Paulson.
The 2019-2020 Socrateens are Christopher Bisram, Johnaila Cole, Michela Farella, Sohit Gurung, Farzana Ibrahim, Anabella Orellana, Kate Panasci, Aneesa Razak, and Laura Umana. Meet the teens