Arts Angle Vantage

Arts Angle Vantage, a project of Arts Journalism Trust,  nurtures citizenship and builds an equitable and creative community by giving youth from diverse backgrounds access to the arts and empowering them to use their voices to create public service arts journalism. 

CONNECTING YOUTH TO LOCAL ARTS: Since 2018, we have connected young people with the arts by giving them free opportunities to report on and write about visual arts, dance, film, and theater. Teens explore art and their community, learn about different art forms, write, and collaborate while covering local creativity. Sometimes our programs focus on criticism. In others, teens interview artists and other creative professionals. In our after-school publishing venture, teens receive peer and one-on-one mentoring by professionals. And their work is published.

ELEVATING YOUTH VOICES: Teens have had their work published in our partner media, including Courier Journal, LEO Weekly, and collegiate and high school publications. Our youth have reported on Dance Theatre of Harlem, the Speed Arts Museum's exhibit "Promise, Witness, Remembrance" in 2021; the touring production of “Hamilton” from the PNC Broadway in Louisville series; and Kentucky Shakespeare's and Pandora Production's joint staging of “Shakespeare’s R&J.”  This summer, we held our first audio storytelling program called Earshot.

WHAT TEENS TELL US: Teens say Arts Angle Vantage has taught them about themselves, resulted in friendships, and connected them to the arts and the wider community. Publishing their works with partner media and on Arts Angle Vantage’s own digital platform energizes community engagement around the arts.

In their own words:

Not only did it help me become a better writer; it helped me become a better person. — Tia

It will push you to be more involved and it will push you to be more aware of things in your community that you maybe weren’t aware of before. — Jewel

The program gave me a passion for writing again. And it’s been the coolest activity I can look back on when I graduate. — Halle