WYOMISSING, Pa. — Lori Hepner, the 2023-24 Penn State Laureate, will visit Penn State Berks and give a live presentation at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 2. The event, which will take place in the Perkins Student Center Multipurpose Room, is free and open to the public.  

A visual artist who has been teaching at Penn State since 2007, Hepner uses movement to abstract and reconstruct images in works that "make the invisible visible," mirroring her own experience with sensory differences, she said. Her ongoing practice, "Drawing with Light," spans the genres of photography, performance, and augmented reality and uses custom, wearable LED devices that use the movement of the body to create digital light drawings. 
 
Hepner has exhibited her artwork in gallery and museum exhibitions in Finland, China, the U.K., Spain, the Netherlands, Iceland, Norway, Canada, Colombia and across the United States. Her abstracted landscapes are engraved on a ruby disk inside of the Moon Arc, a mini museum that will be sent to live on the moon on Astrobotic’s Peregrine Moon Lander in 2023. Its twin is in the Smithsonian’s collection at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. 

As a Penn State Laureate, Hepner wants to show how artists can incorporate wearable LEDs into their work and make art accessible to everyone.  

“As someone who went through the public school system, but unexpectedly had a computer art class in her 1980s kindergarten class, I know that access to technology for art-making purposes can be life-changing,” said Hepner. “I hope to inspire people of all abilities to think outside the box creatively and to dream up new ways that art can be made and shared in the future.” 
 
This event is free and open to the community. For information or disability accommodation, please contact Jeanne Rose at jmrose@psu.edu.