The Docentitos Academy trains youths ages 9–12 years to be Weston Art Gallery docents. 

During this fun-filled, two-week summer camp, students meet the artists and go behind the scenes of an exhibition to learn the inspiration and installation work that goes into creating a show. Daily activities include classes, artist talks, theater tours, workshops, installation and studio visits, script rehearsals, field trips, and a final project. Upon graduating, students lead tours of the gallery’s summer exhibitions.

The 2025 summer session will explore:

Hannah Parrett–Focusing on speculative visions of landscape, Hannah Parrett’s (Cincinnati, OH) work explores representations of natural environments that hold a paradox of a spiritual geography and utopian fallacy. Through the slow process of relief carving and densely layered paintings, she looks at how abstraction can be a tool to dissolve hierarchies of knowledge. Inspired by antique forms, such as ornamented mirrors and frames, Parrett examines how these periphery objects both serve functions of utility and create a space where common myths were enshrined. This site-specific exhibition, featuring objects that represent sets, props or counterfeit reliquaries, created from hand-carved foam and shaped fabric surfaces, will meditate on different manifestations of the ‘frame’ to think about how a backdrop holds coded narratives surrounding a landscape.

Erika NJ Allen–Born in Guatemala, and currently residing in Cincinnati where she teaches at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, OH, Erika NJ Allen creates immersive mixed media installations exploring her personal journey and the broader immigrant experience. This is Not a Banana Republic unfolds as a symbolic battleground depicted through clay sculptures, and evocative photography. Here, the resilience of the human body stands as a defiant gesture against oppressive systems. The banana, once a simple fruit, emerges as a potent metaphor for the artist’s struggle and the enduring war against the immigrant experience. 

Clive Moloney–Clive Moloney’s (Cincinnati, OH) art practice revolves around utilizing natural materials including plants, wood, wild clay, and animal bones found in the woodland around his home in the Clifton neighborhood of Cincinnati. His work aims to create visual myths that display stories of our kinship with the more-than-human world using themes of animism, ritual, death and beauty. In the current Anthropocene epoch we have lost awareness of and reverence for the natural world. Moloney’s work aims to inspire a sense of awe and responsibility for the beauty and complexity of the world around us

Docentitos 2025 Schedule:

Application Deadline: April 1, 2025 - Please see below to download an application
Personal Interview Date: TBD
Orientation with Docentitos and Families: Tuesday, June 3 from 6–7 pm

Docentitos Academy Session Dates - NEW DATES!

(Students must attend ALL dates below):

1^st Day: Saturday, June 7 from 10 am–3 pm

1^st Week: Monday, June 9 through Friday, June 13 from 9 am–3 pm 

2^nd Week: Monday, June 16 through Thursday, June 19 from  9 am–3 pm

Graduation/Opening Night: 

Friday, June 20 from 6–8 pm 

For more information, contact the Weston Art Gallery at (513) 977-4165 or westonartgallery@cincinnatiarts.org

Sponsors: A.M. Kinney III, and Skyline Chili