Gloria J Wilson
Assistant Professor, Art
Art Bldg, Room 138
520-621-7570
University of Georgia
Gloria J. Wilson is Co-Director/Founder of the Racial Justice Studio and Assistant Professor of Art and Visual Culture Education at the University of Arizona. Before returning to complete her PhD at the University of Georgia, Gloria taught visual art in secondary environments for 13 years. Her research is situated within the fields of Cultural Studies, Black Studies and Critical Pedagogy. An artist, public scholar and qualitative/arts-based methodologist, she has presented her research nationally and internationally highlighting the intersections of racial identity and arts participation. Her work analyzes the cultural systems which work to produce race and racism, in general, and more specifically, examines constructions of racial representations across creative modalities and how these practices and processes work to reinscribe or refuse hegemonic systems. She has been the recipient of a Fulbright award to study art, education and culture in Tokyo and Ogi Saga, Japan and has presented workshops exploring creative thinking dispositions for Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Project Zero. Gloria has also been an invited artist/speaker for Spelman College’s Museum of Art BLACK BOX series. Her work/research, “Construction of the Blackademic,” has been exhibited at the McDonough Museum of Art, in Youngstown, Ohio, the WBJ Gallery at Florida State University, in Tallahassee, Florida and the University of Arizona Museum of Art, in Tucson, Arizona. She currently serves on the editorial review board for the Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education, is Chair of the National Art Education Association’s (NAEA) Committee on Multiethnic Concerns (COMC) and co-director of the Arizona Arts Racial Justice Studio (RJS), an arts-centered anti-racism initiative.
She facilitates recurring race-conscious arts-based workshops for in-sevice art teachers and the broader public at various art museums in North America.
Her current research, art-making, and pedagogical practices are grounded in critical arts-based inquiry and methodologies and include a forthcoming art installation dedicated to honoring the lives of the descendants of Clotilda survivors in Africatown, Mobile AL.
Selected publications:
Construction of the Blackademic: An arts-based tale in and through Academia
Curriculum and Mixed Race Identity
Complicating Thought/T.H.OT. Leaders through Critical Arts-Based Research