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Speaker to Present 'The Pursuit of Happiness' at Juniata College's MLK Jr. Convocation
(Posted January 16, 2025)
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Folayemi Wilson
Folayemi Wilson
HUNTINGDON, Pa.— To open the spring semester, keynote speaker Folayemi Wilson will present “The Pursuit of Happiness” at Juniata College’s annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Convocation. The convocation will take place at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, January 21, in Alumni Hall, Brumbaugh Academic Center.
“The MLK Convocation is a time to honor the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and a chance to gather as a college community to kick off the start of the spring semester for Juniata College,” said Derek A. James, dean of equity, diversity, and inclusion. “I believe that Folayemi will provide our students and community with an opportunity to be energized to do the good work as we pursue 2025 and beyond.”
An artist, designer, writer, and educator, Wilson is the first associate dean for access and equity at the Penn State College of Arts and Architecture. Her artistic works celebrate the Black imagination as a technology of resistance and self-determination. She holds a master of fine arts degree in furniture design from the Rhode Island School of Design with a concentration in art history, theory, and criticism, and a master of business administration from New York University’s Stern School of Business. She is a co-founder and principal of blkHaUS studios, a socially-focused design studio originally founded in Chicago and now based in Philadelphia.
Wilson has been a grant recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts, a two-time recipient of an individual artist grant from the Graham Foundation, and received 3Arts awards in 2015 and 2020. Her recent exhibits include group shows at NYCxDesign, the Elmhurst Art Museum in Illinois, Bridge Projects in Los Angeles, and solo exhibitions at The Museum of Contemporary Art and The Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago. Wilson was commissioned for a public art installation at a new Chicago Transit Authority station last year. Additional works are included in the collection of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), and an oral history of her work was featured in Bomb Magazine in 2023.
This event is free and open to the public.
Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.