Phone Now to Register: 212-209-1552.

June 17th - August 12th

Now in its 15th arts-exploding summer, this Best of New York arts program revs up for another fantastic year of ART, ART and MUCH MORE ART than ever before. From tots to teens, Culture Bugs! offers a summer of magical fun  especially designed for kids with some of the city's most talented, experienced resident teaching artists!  Whether your child opts for the Magical Mega Manga Camp with the amazing Yali Lin and Ashley Silva, two of the best manga artists in the business, or Culture Bugs! interdisciplinary Wowza Arts Intensive Mini-Camp, or just plain old Culture Bugs!, with our incredible staff, including sculptor Mallory Breiner, mixed media and bookmaking queen Becky Brown, painter JJ Manford, papermaker, painter and photographer extraordinaire, Tempest Neucollins; painter, Naomi Selwyn and comic artist, Maggie Siegel-Berele, or a mix of the two - kids are guaranteed to have the artiest, most inspiring summer of their lives. The time is NOW! Join us for a kind of ARTFUL FUN you've never had before!

Culture Bugs + Manga in the afternoons + Manga all day Mondays and Fridays! with Yali Lin, Zoë Greenbaum (and maybe even -- if we're lucky -- a little bit of Hyeondo Park)!

Not a Manga Lover? Come anyway! There'll be plenty to do with our cast of amazing artists - Art in every form imaginable - an all around festival of the Surreal. One thing for sure: At Culture Bugs you will NEVER be bored!

Why scramble for something to do, when something great is right at your door?

Download a registration form NOW!

HI ART!– New York’s premiere arts program – presents its fifteenth summer of CULTURE BUGS! the city’s most brilliant and exhilarating mini-camp in the contemporary arts.

Like Hi Art!, Culture Bugs! is fully committed to a creative, child-centered methodology that encourages children to express themselves freely, to develop a sense of ease, familiarity and mastery in the "high" arts, and have a ton of fun all at the same time.

Culture Bugs! integrates visits to the city’s most important museums and galleries with focused in-studio sessions of music, dance and hands-on art. Children dig into a broad range of artists’ materials as they sing, dance, improvise, read poetry, listen to late 20th and 21st century music and stretch their active minds and bodies into new and exciting configurations. Each child works according to his or her abilities, and appropriate faculty is available to work with both older and younger participants.

There is a 5:1 camper/ teacher ratio of talented artists drawn from some of the best arts institutions and MFA programs in the country: Columbia, SVA, Yale, Harvard and Hunter, to name just a few. The program encourages children to take the lead in dictating the shape of projects, and the continued emphasis on well-defined themes gives them a sense of autonomy and creative freedom.

This year's artists include manga wizardesses, Yali Lin and Ashley Silva, sculptor Mallory Breiner, mixed media and bookmaking queen Becky Brown, the fabulously imaginative painter JJ Manford, papermaker, painter and photographer extraordinaire, the multitalented Tempest Neucollins; painter, Naomi Selwyn and comic artist, Maggie Siegel-Berele.  How can you go wrong with so many amazing artists at your service???

No matter how big or small, there's a place at Culture Bugs for your child. Great friends, great advertures, an amazing, child-centered entre into the land of high art for kids whose imaginations and intelligence want something more!

A very limited number of spaces are available and registration will be on a first-come, first-served basis. Informal pre-camp open houses will give enrolled families the opportunity to meet and arrange after-camp activities together. Culture Bugs! Summer 2013 will be held in our gorgeous, new, air-conditioned, natural light studio in Chelsea. Just 2 blocks from Penn Station. Feel free to call with any questions you might have: 212-209-1552.

As always, in summer 2013 children will be swept up by the best gallery hops, the most wonderful, work with imaginative HiArt! teachers, a steady stream of great music and endless inspiration and encouragement. As the great Dada, Tristan Tzara, said, “Accept no forgeries!”

HiArt! where everything artful is possible!

Culture Bugs! is the place to be for Summer 2013!

“Only in New York,” he was overheard whispering, as he and his wife made their way through the Rothko show at the Whitney, “can you find a two-year old sitting and drawing Rothko.” Unbeknownst to him, however, the “two-year old” was really a twenty month old and she was not alone, but accompanied by a small group of three, four and five year olds, all assiduously at work attempting to reproduce their favorite Rothko paintings. Opera singer Cyndie Bellen-Berthézène, founder and director of HI ART! – an unusual workshop, which offers young children an “introduction to high art aesthetics,” – smiles broadly. “People at the Whitney show were completely amazed by our children. In one hour I was approached by four people, including two psychologists and the friend of a well-known Latin American sculptor. They can’t believe their eyes.”

Plans are always evolving – that’s one of our greatest assets – we don’t have to inscribe our plans in stone: we can tailor them to your kids as we go along. Hooray! So feel free to call with any questions you might have: 212-209-1552.

Culture Bugs!
Summer 2013 Mini-Camp Enrollment Terms and Conditions

• An adult must accompany children under kindergarten age at all times.

• A $500 non-refundable enrollment deposit made payable to HI ART! is due at the time of application for EACH session to which you are applying your child. The balance of tuition is due on May 1, 2013. Failure to make final payment by the specified date will result in a forfeiture of your child’s place in the program and no refunds will be made. Courtesy refunds or charge reversals will be charged a 5% service fee.

• All enrollments are for the full session. There will be no refund for early withdrawals from the summer program and absolutely no tuition refunds will be made for withdrawals after May 1.

• Hi Art! reserves the right to either withdraw a child or request that he/she be accompanied by an adult if the program, at its discretion, deems this to be warranted. There will be no refund in the event of our request that a child be withdrawn for disciplinary reasons.

• Families enrolling two or more children will be offered a 5% reduction in tuition for the second child for full sessions only.

• Registration is complete only upon the signed return of the enrollment form, the completion of all paperwork and full payment of tuition.

• Limited scholarship aid is available. Requests for application should be made to the director.

• The signator agrees and undertakes to insure that neither the child being enrolled nor any adult accompanying the child during Hi Art! activities will in any way endanger, or threaten to endanger, the safety or well being of any person in or associated with the program. If in the sole judgment of HI ART! personnel, any such child or adult does so endanger or threaten to endanger other persons, HI ART! reserves the right to discontinue the child's enrollment without consultation or other process, and without refund of any tuition or fee.

• Children and/or their work may be photographed during the course of activities and these photographs may appear in HI ART! promotional materials. No child whose photograph is used will be identified by name, nor will any compensation be awarded for use of said photographs.

• HiArt! Kids reserves the right to cancel classes and assumes no liability whatsoever beyond the refund of tuition for said classes.