Programs

MTV in the '80s, fashion in the '70s, Pop Art in the '60s, and food innovations in the '50s all helped to define America’s recent past. Each day campers time–travel to a different decade and take a cross–cultural look at history through the lens of popular culture. Visits to the Hirshhorn, American History, and African American History and Culture museums spark poster designs, jingles, and recipes inspired by days gone by.

From Hokusai’s The Wave in the Asian Art Museum, to posters of celebrities at the National Portrait Gallery, to wallpaper and textile designs at the Cooper Hewitt, prints are everywhere at the Smithsonian. Campers explore the world of printmaking and learn about its many uses past and present and try their hand at techniques including relief printing, intaglio, and stencils. Visits to museums on the National Mall provide the inspiration for creating their own designs to be displayed at the Friday show-and-share.

Art historian Noah Charney reveals how some religious artworks function as intricate visual puzzles, inviting viewers to decode layers of symbolism, theology, and even politics. He highlights how painters embedded clues ranging from enigmatic objects to hidden narratives, and notes that one artwork even includes a recipe tucked into its imagery. (World Art History Certificate elective, ½ credit)

The early history of Florida is often cast as Spanish conquistadors coming to a miserable place and embarking on quixotic quests only to find death and despair. Yet this narrative obscures a more complex history. Historian J. Michael Francis explores the earliest decades of Florida’s colonial past, including the 1565 founding of St. Augustine—the oldest continuously occupied European settlement in what is now the United States. Francis tells the intersecting stories of European settlers, Native Americans, and Africans, revealing a dynamic, interconnected world.

Travel the world with the summer edition of Sketching the Smithsonian as you take an artful break and explore the fascinating, vast collections of this extraordinary museum.

In April 1429, Joan of Arc rode into the besieged city of Orleans. In May 1431, she was burned at the stake in Rouen. The 25 months between changed the histories of France, of England, and, as the Hundred Years War played out, of Europe itself. Drawing from his book Bloody Crowns, a critical revision of how modern Europe arose from medieval battlefields, military historian Michael Livingston re-examines the story of Joan—what we know of her, how we know of her, and how a teenaged girl could have such an impact on a male-dominated age.

Fallingwater is one of the most celebrated achievements of 20th-century architecture and a supreme example of Frank Lloyd Wright’s philosophy of organic design—the belief that buildings should grow naturally from their surroundings. Historian and architecture lecturer Bill Keene leads an illustrated virtual exploration of this landmark house, examining its design and construction and the personalities behind its creation. Whether you have visited Fallingwater or hope to see it someday, find a deeper appreciation of this remarkable work and the ideas that shaped it. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)

Learn to use the iPad, Apple Pencil, and Procreate for illustration and animation. Students get an introductory lecture on the basics of digital art production, demonstrations, and experience drawing in Procreate on an iPad.

In September 1666, a bakery fire spread rapidly through London, destroying the city’s commercial and political center and reshaping England for years. Historian Carol Ann Lloyd-Stanger examines the fire’s causes, the roles of city officials, weather shifts, and royal intervention in its spread and containment. She also explores the long-term consequences, including rebuilding debates and the profound social, economic, and political changes that followed.

Over nearly 250 years, the National Mall has evolved into the symbolic heart of the nation’s capital, designed to express the ideals of the new republic through landscape, architecture, and monumentality. In the second program of a two-part series, Carolyn Muraskin, examines the post–World War II era, when the Mall became a space not only for remembrance but also for activism and expanding historical narratives as memorial design shifted away from heroic monumentality toward more personal forms of reflection—an evolving effort to represent an increasingly complex American story. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)