The virtual event will focus on the role of research in the arts.
- Divya Rao Heffley
- Alisha B. Wormsley
Cal U’s “Research and Real Life” series, which explores the connection between career preparation and research, continues Oct. 1 with “Archives Are Everywhere.”
Presenters Alisha B. Wormsley, an interdisciplinary artist/cultural producer, and Divya Rao Heffley, a public art administrator and advocate, will focus on the role of research in the arts. A workshop will follow with students from Dr. Cynthia Persinger’s class in communication, design and culture.
The lecture will be streamed 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. The public may join the Oct. 1 event at https://youtu.be/9pXIFGkIKdg, and students may join at https://calu.zoom.us/j/92117162902
The series is sponsored by Cal U’s Center for Undergraduate Research, under the direction of Dr. Azadeh Block.
Both presenters are from southwestern Pennsylvania, and their work is informed by their experiences as persons of color and the changing economic landscape of the region.
Wormsley’s work is about collective memory and the synchronicity of time.
Noted works include The People Are the Light (part of the Hillman Photography Initiative), the Afronaut(a) film and performance series, the Children of NAN film series and archive, and There are Black People in the Future.
She was awarded the Homewood Artist Residency, the City of Pittsburgh’s Mayor Award for Public Art, and a postdoctoral research fellowship at Carnegie Mellon University.
Heffley is the associate director of the Office of Public Art, located at the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council. She was the senior manager of Engagement and Strategy at the Carnegie Museum of Art, and from 2011-2017, she managed the Carnegie Museum of Art’s Hillman Photography Initiative.
Her writing has appeared in Design and Culture and the Center for the Future of Museums blog and is forthcoming in Museums and Visitor Photography and Museum Ideas: Innovation in Theory and Practice, v.2.
“I am thrilled that students will have the opportunity to participate in a workshop with these two inspiring and accomplished individuals whose work addresses social aspects of knowledge production,” Persinger said.
The lecture is co-sponsored by the President's Commission for the Status of Women, the Women's Center, the Women's Studies Program, and the Faculty Professional Development Center Research Subcommittee.