gloria j. wilson is Associate Professor (with tenure) of Arts Administration, Education and Policy at The Ohio State University and a Founder of Racial Justice Studio. Also an artist and public scholar, she has presented her research nationally and internationally highlighting the intersections of structural racism, racial identity construction and arts engagement through liberators aesthetic praxes. Her scholarship is informed by Black studies, transnational feminisms, cultural studies and critical arts-based engagements with these concepts. These frameworks have allowed her work to push disciplinary boundaries of existing art and visual culture education praxis by exploring how racism, race, and anti-racism might be explored through various forms of critical arts engagement. Her most recent work, “A Love Letter to This Bridge Called My Back” honors the legacies of Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherie Moraga’s pivotal text “This Bridge Called My Back” by responding to current politics, progressive struggles, transformations, acts of resistance, and solidarity, among women of color feminists, while also offering readers a space for renewal and healing.
Before returning to complete her PhD at the University of Georgia, gloria taught visual art in secondary environments for 13 years. 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, Nashville's Belcourt Theater Science on Screen speaker series and has facilitated workshops in Culturally Responsive/Sustaining Pedagogies for the National Art Education Association and school districts and museums across the country.
Her outreach has positioned her in leadership roles such as Art Program Director for the Athens/Clarke County Migrant Education Program, appointed member of NAEA's National Task Force on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (2018-19), and member of The Nashville Arts Commission Racial Equity in Arts Leadership (REAL) 2017-18 co-hort. She facilitates recurring racial equity/arts-based workshops for in-sevice art teachers and the broader public at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta GA and The Albany Museum of Art, Albany, GA.
Her current research, art-making, and pedagogical practices are grounded in Black Studies frameworks, critical arts-based inquiry with aims to advance contemporary theories in art education and critically interrogate aesthetic culture as a means to awaken the potential for social transformation.
