2026 Youth Fellows

Hi! My name is Jana. I'm 17 years old, I was born and raised in Queens and I currently attend Gramercy Arts High School.Seeing everyone be so creative and expressing themselves through art motivates me to do just the same. I love creating things whether that includes, arts and crafts, sewing, or even just painting. My hobbies include painting, listening to music, reading, and taking naps. I want to curate because I would like to show a narrative through pieces of art. I think it would be really nice to show significance and meaning through the different art works that I would be helping curate. What draws me to working at BRIC is the space that they hold for so many artists, students, and creators to help and give them an opportunity to put their work out for the public. I create mostly watercolor paintings or oil pastel drawings. I like to incorporate tiny details with these mediums specifically. Other times, I will just use a pencil to draw my favorite characters from the shows that I watch.

Good day! My name is Taevon Weekes, nickname is Tae, I am from East New York, and I have a Caribbean background. Hearing compliments from my peers, as well as being able to express my talents motivates me when making art. Finding peace comes from my creativity, so art is where I express it using colors. I played piano from 2nd to 7th grade, I love poetry, I love writing, and I like soccer, track, badminton, and swimming.

I aspire to curate as I want to see the art that many creative individuals who are teens like myself have processed, and I want to learn from others to help build myself. I also want to see ways where I can take the art that I see and help my peers build themselves because we are all viewing and choosing art that catches our eyes. BRIC is an art internship, and I love art, so I started working here as a curator. Art that I have developed myself are things like animation, digital art, traditional art, claymation, and painting.

Hello my name is Caleb Herbstman. I was born and raised in Brooklyn. I come from a family of artists and I started making art at a young age. I was always drawn to the human form, particularly the face. Art gave me a sense of freedom, allowing me to exercise my imagination and creativity. At around 10 I started stone sculpting and immediately fell in love with the slow meditative process.

I have had no experience curating before and I am excited to learn more about another side of the art industry. Young artists like myself offer new perspectives. I want to make a space for people to see their work and hear their voice and working at BRIC will give me this opportunity.

Hi, I’m Anna, born and raised in Brooklyn, NYC. I primarily work with oil painting, charcoal drawing, and photography of the people around me. My work explores themes of diversity and human connection.

I’m constantly exploring new mediums in my free time, from videography to other visual art forms, and I’m fascinated by the creative process behind every piece, drawing me to curating where I can enjoy learning about artists’ thoughts and inspirations.

BRIC's commitment to supporting Brooklyn artists really resonates with me. I’m excited by the opportunity to help curate, engage with young artists, and contribute to building a creative community.

Hello,

My name is Lorenzo, and I am from The Bronx. I have been creating “art” since I was 8 years old. Whenever I had a device capable of recording videos, I always imagined myself creating my own TV show. However, I never aspired to create my own TV show; rather, it was process of creating films that I enjoyed the most. My true passion for film began when I was 14. This was when I started filming and editing videos for YouTube and other personal projects.

I am interested in curating because it is an activity that I find enjoyable, particularly when I am directing my own work. I believe I possess a powerful imagination that can be put to use in a film project. I am drawn to BRIC because it appeals to me. It gives me the opportunity to work with like-minded people and use the skills I’ve acquired so far.
Currently, I make content on YouTube, specifically gaming videos. I have other projects that are unrelated to social media that I’ve done in the past.

Hello,

My name is Jalen Marks and I am a 16 year old Black African American. I was originally born in Brooklyn but moved to Staten Island somewhere around the mid 2010’s era, with my mom and my sister. Which when I was very young I used to want to become a basketball player because I loved to play the sport a lot by myself, in which over time my mom introduced to me to a basketball program that she believed that I would love. But, during the process of that my compassion of basketball had faded away overtime and over since I couldn’t found a talent that I was looking for. Until I discovered art.

My name is Jada and I’m from Brooklyn. I started making art when I was in elementary school with help from my art teacher. My hobbies include sewing, crochet, doing nails, and tennis.

I want to curate because I’ve always wanted to start my own fashion design show like Project Runaway and Rupal's DragRace which is what inspired my love of fashion and desire to become a fashion designer. So I want to help find films that truly show its creators love and interests. I like working at BRIC because I can be around other people who love making art and get to see all the different types of art people like or use.

I specialize in nail art. When I’m really focused I can put anything on a nail, but when I’m not obsessing over nails I like to sketch fashion figures and clothes with occasional photography depending on my mood.

My name is Meiyi Chen, and I’m an interdisciplinary artist currently studying at Parsons. I love experimenting with textures, meandering lines, and the emotionally intangibles. I appreciate real man-made art, labor of love, and genuine thoughts and feelings. In my art, I advocate (or want to) for justice, queerness, love and peace. I love my friends and family, making animation and memes, and spending time with my cat (my muse), Toasty!

Even before I knew anything at all, I felt as if I was destined to make art—though there has to be a deep influence passed down to me from my mother and her father who I never truly talked with when it was possible—both of whom make art. Art is my life and a free form of spirit that endlessly runs through my veins. I am born to tenderly experience all kinds of emotions, forms of expression in existence, languages that different materials speak—I learn, combine, and challenge myself to render multimedia art that can only be made by me, which also means something to someone else out there as well. I wish I could not only be a great artist one day, but also someone whose works, words, and actions can provide support to those who need them.

My name is Zainab Shahjahan and I am a youth curator at BRIC. I am from New York and go to school in the south-central part of Brooklyn. I love to create horror films with my friend and write scripts for my school's musical. I enjoy ice skating, baking, and watching fictional crime shows like psych and white color.

I was motivated to create my own movies out of love of horror and because of Dav and his wonderful movies. I became a curator at BRIC because I am fascinated with all the different genres and would love the opportunity to showcase all the different artistic styles that teens would put in their films.

Isabella Ostuni is a Filipino-Italian filmmaker based in Mamaroneck, New York. Isabella uses film as her tool to investigate differing viewpoints and search for energy and compassion in everyday things. Isabella first began making films as part of an elective video class in the 9th grade, and has since discovered that it is the medium that allows her to blend all her creative passions into one. She makes films drawing on her love for history, music, nature, and writing, as well as her childhood in Brooklyn and her family heritage. She is drawn to curating because she believes that everyone should have the opportunity to have a creative space and community.

Hello! I'm Eli, a South Asian artist from New York who creates both traditional and digital art, but primarily the ladder. I focus on depicting queer experience and topics of mental illness through my art. I am enamored by psychological horror as a genre and am an aspiring game developer and animator who is currently working with friends on multiple projects. In my free time I like to play games with friends and am currently relearning the piano, as well as planning to pick up the drums and guitar.

I've been drawing for so long I can barely remember when I started. Now, as a seventeen year old I am still learning and developing my craft. I strive to create media that brings comfort to those who can't find it in other places, and I strive to create media that disturbs—maybe both. BRIC gives me a space to get out of that comfort zone me and many other creatives often find themselves in. Curating creates a community for people who share the same love for art—it helps not only creators improve, but us curators look through the lenses of different artists and improve ourselves as well.