Oakwood Arts

Fall Programming

In the coming weeks, we will be having conversations with community leaders, parents, and other nonprofit organizations in the East End to pool our resources and provide tangible support to our community during the ongoing pandemic.

We will also be working with Richmond Public Schools to come up with ways we can continue to creatively engage kids and teens in our community and supplement their virtual learning experiences in the fall. If you missed our creativity kits during the summer all the activities are available to download for free here.

We will keep everyone posted, and please do reach out if you have any suggestions, requests, or would like to volunteer to and help us in our efforts.

“Many of the students in this program also participated in OA’s photography class I taught at the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia last summer, and it has been amazing for me to see how much their techniques and skills have grown in such a short amount of time. I believe taking black and white images instead of color allowed the kids to not only feel a sense of connection to the style of the Kamoinge Group but find and share their own poetic perspective capturing the streets of Richmond. I start to feel emotional every time I view the students’ work from this program because I can tell they are truly developing their photographic eye. I thoroughly enjoyed preparing for and teaching this program with Shannon Castleman, who actually taught me black and white darkroom photography during my freshman year at VCU. Shannon has described having the same feeling of emotion as she watched my photographic eye develop, and experiencing that with students of my own has fueled me to work even harder while creating my own images and continue sharing my passion with those around me.”

-Maya Jackson, OA Lead Mentor