Roxy Kaplan created Ōnder Ōns, a D.C. business where strangers meet, eat and discover art together, after noticing a need in the community.
“A lot of young people felt intimidated to walk into a gallery or engage with art,” Kaplan said.
Ōnder Ōns brings young professionals together through monthly dinners happening in different art galleries or exhibits. Guests are often strangers, seated together for a meal, while experiencing the gallery’s art.
Each event typically hosts between 30-50 guests, with the goal of bridging the gap between the younger generation and the art scene in D.C., according to the Ōnder Ōns website.
According to the Ōnder Ōns website, the buisness’ name is a nod to Kaplan’s Dutch heritage. It comes from the Dutch expression “onder ons,” meaning “between us.”The phrase describes a space where people connect over their genuine interests.
Kaplan grew up in Miami, Florida. She graduated from George Washington University, where she studied finance, international business and art history.
Her mother, an oil painter who specialized in portraiture, was Kaplan’s “attachment to art,” Kaplan said in an interview.
Although originally intending to pursue a career in private wealth management, Kaplan said she realized that was not the route she wanted to take. After graduating, she stayed in D.C. working in hospitality and exploring museums.
“I just realized that [the D.C. art scene] wasn’t as bustling as New York, LA or even Miami,” Kaplan said.
Kaplan first experimented with her idea through her job, which led her to an arts club in D.C. that hosts painting classes.
Kaplan said she asked to throw the first event on the club’s rooftop and figured she could use content to push for the next event.
“I could start posting and get traction and really solidify the mission and prove to galleries that this was a real idea that was working,” she said.
Kaplan not only curates the dinners and galleries, but also the guest list. Anyone can request a ticket on the website, but Kaplan must approve requests before guests can attend. During her time in D.C. for college, she felt it was harder to connect with people who were doing cool things.
“D.C., in my opinion, can be a very square and rigid city in certain ways, just given the types of jobs that people go there for,” Kaplan said.
This led her to want to create a place that people interested in arts would go to.
Naomi Worth, a junior art history major at UMD, has recognized a similar barrier among young people in the art world.
“One of the barriers of getting younger generations into art communities is the perception that it’s a lot of older highly educated academic people, and it’s hard to break into,” Worth said.
Kaplan typically accepts people ages 22 to 35 and tries to have two to three people from each age group. Kaplan also tries to select a balance between women and men, as well as people from various career backgrounds.
“I just try to make the group as diverse as possible, because I think that’s the best kind of situation you can be in when trying to meet new people,” Kaplan said.
For Kaplan, the success of Ōnder Ōns does not rely on the number of people attending each dinner. One attendee recently told Kaplan she met two of her best friends at an Ōnder Ōns event.
“I think that’s a really fulfilling aspect of it,” Kaplan said. “To see that it pays off and that people form actual relationships out of it definitely motivates me to continue.”