Platteforum

PlatteForum is an award-winning and innovative arts, youth-development, and artist-in-residence program founded in Denver, Colorado in 2002. As a 501 (c)3 nonprofit organization, PlatteForum teams youth (K-12) from historically marginalized communities with professional artists in intensive, structured, and long-term creative learning environments. Youth work side by side with resident artists to collaboratively plan, produce, and exhibit a body of work in an environment in which artistic excellence is highly valued. Youth in PlatteForum’s programs delve into a variety of art forms, confronting challenges and obstacles and making life-changing discoveries about who they are, what they are capable of achieving, and where they belong in the world. About PlatteForum’s Artist Residency Program & ArtLab High School Internship PlatteForum’s Artist Residency program is a unique, competitive artist-in-residence program that provides four to five artists per year with the time, space, and support to create new artistic work and share their creative process with youth and the community for six to eight weeks. Each artist leads a series of workshops with the same cohort of ArtLab high school interns during the residency period. ArtLab is an intensive, paid, year-round, out-of-school youth development program and internship for high school youth from historically marginalized communities. ArtLab students work side by side with professional artists to create and present new work for the public. The following outcomes are supported by ArtLab: ensuring that all interns graduate from high school on time and are prepared for post-secondary success, while utilizing their voices to create positive change in their community. PlatteForum’s ArtLab boasts a 12-year, 97% on-time graduation rate for our interns, significantly higher than Colorado’s rate of 80.7% (6th lowest in the county). In 2016, PlatteForum began tracking post secondary activity of ArtLab graduates, and through 2020.