Explore the films featured throughout this year’s Summer Institute. This curated playlist offers an opportunity to revisit key ideas like collaboration, experimentation, and memory, discover new perspectives, and bring more contemporary art into your classroom. Whether you’re preparing for the school year or simply looking for creative inspiration for your own artistic practice, these films are a great place to start.

Read more highlights from the 2026 Summer Institute here.

What do artists do when they finally master a process to perfection? How do contemporary artists push themselves in new, exciting directions? This playlist aims to highlight artists who never quite settle, pushing their work into new undiscovered territories. 

Artists who experiment and take risks inspire my work as both an educator and visual artist. In the classroom and studio, I am always looking for new challenges when the creation process becomes too familiar or stale. Sometimes I share these videos with students while talking about curiosity, experimentation, and risk-taking in the face of boredom. But many times, these artists are small personal reminders for myself as I enter a creative space. When I rewatch these videos, I am reminded why trying something new is a frustrating, beautiful, and worthwhile pursuit. 

Read more about how Nathan combats boredom in the classroom.

How do artists compose their work?

Painter Elizabeth Murray talks about painting like a safe breaker cracks a safe. The thief listens, tunes in to something unseen, and waits until they hear an actual click. Metaphorical “safe breaking,” it turns out, is an engaging way to have my fourteen- to eighteen-year-old high school students think about the various ways that artists compose their work and how assistants, family, and community members sometimes play a role.

I use this all-ages playlist as a starting point for students to consider how they want to make and compose their own artwork. The students in my classes have typically not had much art experience prior to high school. Sharing these artists who may look like and have similar lived experiences to my students helps them begin to think about themselves as artists; identify some of what influences how they see the world; consider the various ways that they might choose images, symbols, and color; and decide how to begin putting it all together into something that clicks for them.

Whether students riff on symbols from their own cultures (Dyani White Hawk), push on canvas to feel where the tension is (Marela Zacarías), or relinquish image selection to an algorithm to avoid choosing just one (Ho Tzu Nyen), my students benefit from seeing how artists compose their work. Encountering these varied approaches helps students understand that making art is not just about skill, but about listening, experimenting, and staying with the process until something opens.

All Ages is a series of playlists featuring films that have been thoroughly screened for questionable content, such as nudity, cursing, or violence. These playlists are grouped by a teaching strategy, theme, or particular audience.