Arab Museum's Sura Arts Academy Offers Youth Eye-Opening Instruction, Perspective

posted on: Oct 4, 2012

How do today’s young people view their families, friends and their neighborhoods? How do they deal with meeting different kinds of people? How can a camera help kids learn a new skill and see the community around them with a fresh perspective?

Explore these topics and more by viewing photographs and short documentaries by middle school students from Detroit and Dearborn in the 2012 SURA Arts Academy Student Exhibition. It opens Saturday, Oct. 13, 2012 and runs through Feb. 3, 2013 in the Lower Level Gallery at the Arab American National Museum, 13624 Michigan Ave. in Dearborn; it’s free with Museum admission.

The public is invited to a free opening reception noon-2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 13, 2012 featuring complimentary refreshments, video premieres, and live entertainment.

SURA Arts Academy – a 2008 winner of the prestigious Coming Up Taller Award from the President’s Committee on Arts and the Humanities – helps local middle school students learn to interact with an increasingly diverse world. The free after-school program offers the use of a digital camera, professional instruction, field trips and discussions conducted in a safe, welcoming environment, during academic-year and summer-camp sessions.

During the 2012 Spring semester, SURA students studied and explored topics of their choice through documentary video in addition to still photography. Student works in both mediums comprise the exhibition.

For more information on upcoming semesters of SURA Arts Academy, contact Lindsay Robillard at 313.624.0210 or lrobillard@accesscommunity.org or visit www.arabamericanmuseum.org/SURA-Arts-Academy.id.438.htm.

SURA Arts Academy is made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Hearst Foundations and the Muna & Basem Hishmeh Foundation, Inc.