UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Keisha Oliver, who is pursuing a dual-title doctoral degree in art education and African American and diaspora studies, was named a fall 2024 artist-in-residence at the Penn State College of Engineering’s Learning Factory.
The Learning Factory is a collaborative maker space that supports “learning by doing” by providing the equipment and training for activities including metalwork, woodwork, computer numerical control embroidery, additive manufacturing and blacksmithing.
“My work at the Learning Factory is concerned with the relationship of ‘self’ and ‘time,’ and how these concepts intersect through cultural heritage and arts pedagogy,” Oliver said.
With that focus, Oliver has created three public workshops where participants employ art-making to center memory, mindfulness and imagination, she explained.
During the first session in September, participants arranged personal objects in shadow boxes adorned with LED lights.
“The activity prompted personal archiving and community sharing,” Oliver said.
Participants at the Oct. 28 session created an “affirmation box” where they engaged in a creative writing session and then inscribed their box with positive thoughts and affirmations. The final session has yet to be scheduled.
“‘The Affirmation Box’ reflects on the power and influence of words,” Oliver said. “The writing helped participants with healing and self-care as they created boxes inscribed with positive thoughts and affirmations.”
Oliver came to Penn State in 2022 from her home in the Bahamas. She is an assistant professor of art and design at the University of The Bahamas, but came to Penn State to complete her doctoral research on the relationship between mid-20th-century transcultural learning and intellectual genealogy that connects Black artists across the Caribbean and the United States.
She said she chose Penn State because of its well-known art education doctoral program, but also because of the atmosphere the University Park campus offers.
“Its remote small-town aesthetic and lush scenery is an ideal escapism of tranquility for my graduate studies,” Oliver said. “It has offered a charm that allows me to focus on my studies unlike the hustle and bustle of neighboring major cities.”
During her time at Penn State, Oliver said she has been well-supported by the College of Arts and Architecture’s School of Visual Arts (SoVA), which has provided her with funding, quality academics and professional development opportunities.
Oliver has held graduate and teaching assistantships with the Palmer Museum of Art and SoVA and has presented at national and international conferences in art education and museum studies. Her work is also displayed in public and private collections in the Bahamas and has been exhibited in the Caribbean, Europe and Asia.
She is currently a research assistant for the Charles Blockson Collection of African Americana and The African Diaspora in the Eberly Family Special Collections Library, where she manages a collection of more than 100,000 objects, leads instructional sessions, supports researchers and curates programming.
In 2024, she received the Dorothy Hughes Young Endowed Scholarship for Music and Art Education and in 2023 the Student Leader Scholarship. Also in 2023, she was an artist-in-residence with the Catwalk Art Institute.