Open Mon – Sat, 9 am – 5 pm · B v/d Veen Zeppenfeldstraat 6, San Nicolas · +297 593 4475
ArtisA's longest-running education programme. For young people aged 12 to 18, art becomes a way to think, to speak and to build confidence, and it ends on a real public stage.
Each year Art Expression works with schools and non-profit organisations across Aruba. Every participating group receives a 1.5 × 1.5 metre canvas and a full set of painting materials. Guided by their teachers and creative mentors, students create an original work in response to that year's ArtWeek theme, and the canvases are shown during ArtWeek Aruba.
But it is not just a painting assignment. Students reflect on the world around them, tell personal stories in a visual language, explore inclusion, fairness, environmental responsibility and identity, learn to work as a team and gain confidence by presenting their work to the public.
In 2025 the programme grew into a year-round after-school pilot with Filomena College MAVO. Students become not only artists but cultural producers, designers, performers and storytellers, with weekly workshops in painting and visual arts, photography and video, dance, rap and performance, singing, spoken word and poetry, graphic design and web tools, project management and production, and fashion and textile design.
They help build the Youth Art Fair themselves, from concept and curation to visuals and choreography, and create eight original garments that walk the ArtFashion runway next to professional designers. In the 2025–2026 cycle they also designed a visual identity for their own school, around the theme Nature × Mankind.
AE is the foundation, AE is the entry point and AE is just the beginning.
Art education in many disciplines, mentors tied to real deadlines, a runway and an exhibition of their own, and the confidence that comes with it.
Families, schools and visitors meet the next generation of Aruban creatives at the heart of ArtWeek.
A model that can grow to other schools and neighbourhoods, and a long-term investment in the island's creative future.
Your gift pays for canvases, paint and the teachers who guide students every week.
