Who We Are

Simone Osthoff, Director; University Park Coordinator

Simone Osthoff is Professor of Critical Studies in the School of Visual Arts at the Pennsylvania State University. A Brazilian-born and US-based scholar, her research focuses on the intersections of experimental art practices and decolonial histories. She holds a PhD from the European Graduate School, an MA degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and an MFA degree from the University of Maryland. Osthoff has lectured widely in museums, universities, and symposia worldwide. She co-organized conferences, chaired panels, delivered dozens of papers presentations, and has given keynote lectures at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, in addition to institutions in Berlin, The Hague, London, Brasília, and São Paulo. Her essays, translated into eight languages, appeared in Leonardo, Flusser Studies, Ars, New Art Examiner, World Art, Art Journal, Neural magazine, among others. Articles in artists’ catalogues include galleries and museums in the US, Spain, England, Slovenia, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia, as well as the Venice Biennale, and the Bienal do Mercosul. Osthoff’s more than two-dozen book chapters were published by the MIT Press, Routledge, La Maison de La Photographie, the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, and the Paço das Artes in São Paulo. She is the author of the book Performing the Archive: The Transformation of the Archive in Contemporary Art from a Repository of Documents to an Art Medium, from Atropos, and is part of the editorial team of the multilingual journal Flusser Studies. Among awards and honorable mentions received is a Fulbright Fellowship.

Rebecca Strzelec, Penn State Altoona Coordinator

Rebecca Strzelec is Distinguished Professor of Visual Arts and Program Coordinator of Visual Art Studies at Penn State University, Altoona College. She earned her BFA 2000 and MFA 2002 from Tyler School of Art, Temple University in Metals/Jewelry/CAD-CAM. Her work consists of wearable objects which are created via computer aided design, three-dimensional modeling, and 3D printing. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Arts and Design, Fuller Craft Museum, and Racine Art Museum. Strzelec’s work has been featured in many exhibitions in prominent contemporary craft galleries in the US and abroad. Strzelec is a Penn State Alumni Teaching Fellow and the 2016-2017 Penn State Laureate. Strzelec served as Chair of the SIGGRAPH 2012 conference, an annual event that brought over 21,000 people connected to computer graphics and interactive techniques to Los Angeles. Strzelec lives in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania with her husband, and two small children.

Yvonne Love, Penn State Abington Coordinator

Yvonne Love is Program Chair and an Associate Professor of Art at Penn State Abington College. A sculptor and collaborative installation artist, she has had recent solo exhibitions at the List Gallery at Brown University (2018), The Hopper Magazine (2018), Madelon Powers Gallery at East Stroudsburg University (2017), LG Tripp Gallery in Philadelphia (2013), Taller Graphica Experimental in Havana, Cuba (2013) and was included in a group show at The Woodmere Art Museum in Philadelphia (2014) and Boston’s International Art Fair (2018). Love has worked collaboratively with poets, artists, scientists and musicians, but primarily with TangenT and The LR Collaborative. Upcoming solo exhibitions include TangenT’s, The Weight of Water, a series of art works that investigates American ideals of individualism, patriotism and community, along with  governance and trust in the aftermath of groundwater contamination in and around Warminster, PA, at the Cellini Gallery, Ambler, PA (2019); and The LR Collaborative’s, A Quick and Tragic Thaw, a call to action focusing on the science of climate change, extreme weather, and the decimation of wildlife in the Anthropoceneat the Ruffin Gallery, at the University of Virginia (2019). Love received her MFA in sculpture from the University of Pennsylvania, and is represented by Brenda Taylor Gallery in Boston, and Sidetracks Gallery in New Hope, Pennsylvania.

Angela Rothrock, Lead Consultant, Courses and Curriculum Initiative

Angela Rothrock is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the School of Visual Arts at the Pennsylvania State University. With a PhD in Educational Theory and Policy from Penn State, she also brought to SoVA a solid experience in curriculum development and student advising. Her teaching focuses upon art, cultural activism, and sustainable practices. To this end, she develops engaged learning opportunities for undergraduates with community partners that can challenge students’ common perceptions of “otherness.” Rothrock also developed, currently coordinates, and leads, the immersive study abroad program SoVA Down Under, which takes place in Australia and New Zealand. The program includes three courses with a focus on indigenous cultures, public and activist art, and sustainable communities. In addition to these experiential courses, she is currently developing a study away course titled Art as Social Practice First-year Seminar, in collaboration with the Penn State’s Urban Engagement Center in Philadelphia. The course will engage first-year Penn State students with creative community groups and artists in the greater Philadelphia area. Rothrock also serves a Faculty Fellow for Penn State’s Student Engagement Network; she works closely with Penn State’s Sustainability Institute to enhance SoVA’s curriculum; and is a past member of American University International Programs’ advisory board.

Shannon Goff, Exhibition Initiative Consultant; Artists Lectures Initiative Consultant

Shannon hails from the Motor City, receiving her BFA from the University of Michigan in 1996 and her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art 2003. She has been the recipient of a Japanese Monbusho grant and twice awarded residencies to the John Michael Kohler Arts/Industry program. Shannon has received research grants from the College of Arts & Architecture and the Institute of Arts & Humanities at Penn State in 2013-14 for her recent project, Miles To Empty.  In 2017 she received a United States Artist Fellowship nomination. Her work has recently been included in exhibitions at the Knockdown Center in Queens, NY, Susanne Hilberry Gallery in Ferndale, MI, Printed Matter in NYC, the San Jose Museum of Art, UC-Northridge, and in Beijing, Berlin, Chicago and Australia. Recent reviews of her work have been featured in Hyperallergic, DesignBoom, Colossal, FastCoDesign, and Cfile. She is an associate professor of Sculpture and Ceramics at Penn State University. Prior to her appointment, she taught at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Cranbrook Academy of Art and The Rhode Island School of Design.

Helen O’Leary, Exhibition Initiative Consultant; Artists Lectures Initiative Consultant

Helen O’Leary is an Irish-born artist based in the United States and Ireland, who is best known for constructions that blur the boundaries between painting and sculpture, art and life. She grew up with her sisters on a small farm, that she refers to as “pre-modern.” A tornado, a lightning strike, and her father’s early death, when she was eleven, left the family at risk of losing the farm. The ensuing struggle, which her mother met by renting rooms to tourists as a B&B and enlisting her daughters to work the farm, marks O’Leary’s practice and forms the basis of its feminist language. Survival and persistence are the central armatures of her work.

She holds an MFA and BFA degrees from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL. Currently based in New York, her work has been widely recognized through awards and residencies including the Rome Prize American Academy in Rome; the Hennessy Purchase Award, IMMA, Dublin; the Purchase Award American Academy of Arts and Letters; the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship; the Pollock-Krasner awards (2); the Joan Mitchell Award for painting and sculpture; the Culturel Irlandaise, France; the Sam and Adele Golden Residency, NY; the Mac Dowell Colony, New Hamshire; the Skowhegan program, ME; and the Yaddo Residency, NY. Among multiple and prestigious  exhibitions are the American Academy of Arts and Letters, NYC; The American Academy in Rome, Italy and NYC; The MAC Belfast, Ireland; National Gallery of Art, Ireland; Lesley Heller Gallery, NYC; Maine Museum of Art, Bangor, Maine; Muscarele Museum of Art, Williamsburg, Virginia; The Butler Gallery, Ireland; The National Portrait Gallery, Limerick, Ireland; Galerie le Petit Port, Belgium; the Contemporary Arts Centre, Sidney, Australia; Patricia Sweetow Gallery, San Francisco; Zurcher Gallery, NYC; Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, IL; Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda, Ireland; Glasgow Museum of Art, Scotland; and the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Ireland. 

A Professor in the School of Visual Arts at Penn State University, O’Leary co- authored the Penn State Program Representing the Irish Landscape, which includes climate scientists, poets, writers, activists, and farmers. In a list of former collaborations that include artists, writers, and musicians, there are two current and parallel projects being developed with Kim Flick with a focus on sustainability and material research. They merge painting, design, architecture, survival, pigments and the natural environment, and are titled: the “DIY DYE Cart” and the “Living Color in the Sustainable Studio.” https://sites.psu.edu/sovas3a/people/

Kim Flick, Community Collaborations Initiative Consultant

Kim Gates Flick is a creative entrepreneur committed to investigating the relationship between sustainability and studio practice. Her multi-faceted career ranges from classroom instruction to teacher’s training, from creative services to commercial companies—including a world-renowned brand—to work with various community arts organizations, whose mission promotes and protects natural resources.

Her BFA degree in Drawing and Painting is from The Pennsylvania State University, where she also minored in Equine Science. She earned an MFA in Visual Arts from an innovative and pioneering program at Vermont College. Her time in Vermont proved to be transformative and prompted her to pursue a teaching career with an environmental focus, back home in Centre County, PA. As an art educator, Flick provides experiential education through place-based pedagogy. For two decades, she has forged an art education through community outreach and collaborations developed in sustainable contexts and with sustainable goals.

At the School of Visual Arts, she successfully co-authored and co-taught the special topic course Sustainable Studio: Materials, Methods and Makers, in addition to co-authoring and co-teaching a new Inter-domain course, titled Meteorology and Art: To Know is to See. As an artist and teacher, she is currently a nominee for a Pennsylvania Art Education Association award, for her continued support of K-12 art educators with courses and workshops towards their earning ACT 48 hours of professional development.

Alexandra Allen, Post-Doctoral Scholar, Administrative Project Manager

Alexandra Allen is a Post Doctoral Scholar of Art Education in the School of Visual Arts at the Pennsylvania State University. With a PhD in Art Education from Florida State University, her research focuses primarily on individuals with disabilities and how they develop and renegotiate their own disability identity. Using theories from disability studies, Alexandra continues to generate artwork that addresses issues of ableism in an effort to challenge the stigmatized notion of mental health disorders within a normative society. In her most recent work as a practicing artist, Alexandra’s creations are largely in abstract form, combining various methods including watercolor and ink to encapsulate her own disability experience as she explores the sociocultural factors that perpetuate performative ablebodiedness. With a background in teaching students with disabilities, she aims to integrate disability awareness into her pedagogical practices. Alexandra is currently a member of the conference executive board for Disability Studies in Art Education and has contributed publications on the intersection of Disability Studies and Art Education in the Journal of Curriculum Theorizing and the International Journal of Education through Art.

Xalli Zuniga, PhD. Student, Graduate Research Assistant

Xalli Zúñiga is a multidimensional, Mestizx artist/academic/curator born in Mexico City. She is currently undertaking a PhD in Art Education at Penn State. Xalli obtained a B.A. in Visual Arts at the National School of Fine Arts, at U.N.A.M. in Mexico City. From 2013 to 2015 she completed the Erasmus Mundus “Crossways in Cultural Narratives” M.A. degree from three universities in Europe: University of St Andrews, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, and Université de Perpignan Via Domitia.

Conceiving drawing as a practice of expansive alterity through an affective-discursive regard towards autopoiesis, Xalli’s work bridges transdisciplinary gaps and builds unconventional connections between different living beings in the world. Drawing, in this sense, is a means for people to explore the liminality of identity as a personal-ideological construction, paving the way for the practice of radical empathy. Xalli has engaged in drawing as a means to deconstruct and dismantle narratives of oppression by stimulating people’s capacity for meaning production. She has conducted experimental drawing workshops in Lusaka, Zambia, Chiapas, Mexico, and in State College, PA.

B. Stephen Carpenter, II, Founding Co-Director

Steve Carpenter is Dean of the College of Arts and Architecture, and Professor of Art Education and African American Studies; Co-Director of the Summer Institute on Contemporary Art (SICA); and Chief Executive Artist for Reservoir Studio. He is also a Founding Faculty member of the summer residency MAT/MA in Art & Design Education Program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. A past Senior Editor of Studies in Art Education (2017-2019), Steve has also served as co-editor of the Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy (2010-2013), and editor of Art Education (2004-2006). Steve’s research explores professional development for preK-12 educators, public pedagogy, participatory art practices, critical art education studies, and the global water crisis as curriculum. His mixed-media and performance artworks confront and disrupt social, historical, cultural, and political constructs. He is co-author of Interdisciplinary Approaches to Teaching Art in High School (2006), co-editor of Curriculum for a Progressive, Provocative, Poetic, and Public Pedagogy (2006), Professional Development in Art Museums: Strategies of Engagement Through Contemporary Art (2018), and The Palgrave Handbook of Race and the Arts in Education (2018).