This exhibit will be on display at the Hart Memorial Library starting on Saturday, June 28.

In partnership with Osceola County Corrections and UCF, the Library is exhibiting a set of 44 puppets crafted by inmates of Osceola County Corrections, the result of four weeks of bilingual workshops led by Dr. Tyler Fisher and Leah Basaria in June 2025. Fisher and Basaria used puppetry to help inmates develop job interview skills as part of the Correctional Facility’s classes. Open Scene, a multilingual performing arts non-profit, created kits of puppet-making materials, which the incarcerated students used to create puppet personas for practice interviews.

Research in “applied puppetry” has shown that puppets’ capacity for allowing a puppeteer to adopt various personas can build confidence, linguistic competence, and creativity. Drawing on this research, Fisher and Basaria developed a series of workshops, aptly named the “Art of Interviewing,” in which incarcerated students learn to make puppets and then practice job interviews in Spanish and English. The puppets help soon-to-be-released inmates build confidence and competence. Via their puppet personas, students can let go of self-consciousness and inhibitions. The puppets serve as an empowering extension of the self.

One inmate reflected on his experience using puppets as a proxy: “I can’t feel offended by critical feedback when I have a puppet on my hand.” Initially funded by an “Our Town” grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the puppet-making kits were created by Open Scene artists, who included written instructions in English, Spanish and Haitian Creole. Distinct from typical children’s puppets, the puppet components were designed to be playful without being childish, featuring human-like qualities and non-human colors, steering clear of any racial connotations.

The students’ unique puppets, displayed at Hart Memorial Library, constitute something Fisher calls “anti-mugshots”: these puppets encourage the public to perceive the incarcerated students as artists, performers, creative agents. Alongside each puppet, a written description offers details about the particular student’s journey and aspirations. The exhibition aims to inspire and uplift, illustrating how creative engagement with incarcerated individuals can spark personal transformation, from incarceration to reentry and reintegration.

This exhibit is on display from Saturday, June 7 – Friday, July 25, 2025.

Kline has always had a love of drawing and art. As a child, she would make paper dolls for each of her teachers, then carefully construct their ensembles. Any available surface became her canvas – napkins, fabric, even the branches of a Century plant. She studied at Windermere Art Gallery and received a year of private instruction from a prolific watercolor artist.

Kline participated in various workshops and classes in oil, pastel, and watercolor; and juried art events. Kline’s preferred medium is painting portraits, finding it exciting to sculpt face and form with paint, as the subject comes to life.

For more information on the Arts in Public Places Program contact diana@osceolaarts.org

This exhibit is on display from Thursday, July 10 – Monday, September 8, 2025.

Nelmarie Figueroa is a photographer currently based in Central Florida. She has been photographing since 2013. Figueroa uses this medium to document life and embrace the past. Figueroa is interested in subtleties, such as a shared glance between strangers, the quietness on a busy street, and visible connections between humans.

For Figueroa, photography serves as a medium of preservation — not only for images, but also for emotions, stories, and the essence of moments. The artist aims to slow down time and collect these small happenings as tributes to people.

For more information on the Arts in Public Places Program contact Marilyn@osceolaarts.org