Omi Osun Joni L. Jones
Professional Affiliate, Leadership for Sustainability
Professor, African and African Diaspora Studies Department, University of Texas at Austin
BIO
Omi Osun Joni L. Jones explores performance, visual art, community-building and the places where these forms meet. She is the founder of the Austin Project—a collective of women of color and their allies who use art for personal and social transformation, and is co-founder of the ISESE Gallery at the Warfield Center for African and African American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Her original performances include sista docta, a critique of academic life, and Sittin’ in a Saucer—a series of readings with prompts for audience/witnesses’ engagement. Among her ethnographic works are Searching for Ọ̀ṣun—a performance installation around the Divinity of the River; and Theatrical Jazz: Performance, Àṣẹ, and the Power of the Present Moment—a collaborative ethnography focusing on three theatrical jazz innovators. She has been a Fulbright Senior Fellow working in Osogbo and Ile-Ife, Nigeria, and has had writing fellowships with Hedgebrook and Yadoo. Omi has been shaped by Robbie McCauley’s activist art, Laurie Carlos’s insistence on being present, and Barbara Ann Teer’s overt union of art and Spirit. She holds a Ph.D. from New York University, and an Embodied Social Justice Certificate from Transformative Change. Omi is Professor Emerita from the African and African Diaspora Studies Department at the University of Texas at Austin, a mother, a Queer wife, and a curious sojourner.
Bio
Omi Osun Joni L. Jones explores performance, visual art, community-building and the places where these forms meet. She is the founder of the Austin Project—a collective of women of color and their allies who use art for personal and social transformation, and is co-founder of the ISESE Gallery at the Warfield Center for African and African American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Her original performances include sista docta, a critique of academic life, and Sittin’ in a Saucer—a series of readings with prompts for audience/witnesses’ engagement. Among her ethnographic works are Searching for Ọ̀ṣun—a performance installation around the Divinity of the River; and Theatrical Jazz: Performance, Àṣẹ, and the Power of the Present Moment—a collaborative ethnography focusing on three theatrical jazz innovators. She has been a Fulbright Senior Fellow working in Osogbo and Ile-Ife, Nigeria, and has had writing fellowships with Hedgebrook and Yadoo. Omi has been shaped by Robbie McCauley’s activist art, Laurie Carlos’s insistence on being present, and Barbara Ann Teer’s overt union of art and Spirit. She holds a Ph.D. from New York University, and an Embodied Social Justice Certificate from Transformative Change. Omi is Professor Emerita from the African and African Diaspora Studies Department at the University of Texas at Austin, a mother, a Queer wife, and a curious sojourner.