CV
Education
Whitney Independent Study Program
Helena Rubenstein Critical Studies Fellow
2024/25
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
MFA, Interdisciplinary Studies
2024
Excelsior College
BS, Communication Studies
2010
University of Virginia
Community Scholar, Studio Art and Media Studies
2010
American Academy of Dramatic Arts
AA, Performance
2006
Artistic & Cultural Leadership
Educational & Scholarly Leadership
Additional Professional Experience
Live Arts Theatre
Director of New Works
2022-present
NOW NOW
Co-Founder + Lead Teacher-Artist
2020-2022
Albemarle County Schools Charlottesville, Virginia
Instructional Specialist and Coach [2018-present]
Lead Curriculum Designer, US History/African American Studies, Concurrent [2020-22]
2020-22
Member, Steering Committee, “Reframing the Narrative”, Albemarle County Public Schools, with support from Charlottesville Area Community Fund, in partnership with James Madison’s Montpelier
Instructional Coach Liaison, Social Studies, Division PLC, Albemarle County
2019
Curriculum Designer, Antiracism Committee, Albemarle County Public Schools
2018
Member, Antiracism Committee, Albemarle County Public Schools
2016-18
Diversity Resource Teacher, Albemarle County Public Schools
Lead, Equity Team, Lakeside Middle School, Albemarle County Public Schools
2010-16
Independent Production Management and Arts Administration
Production Manager, PRODJECT, New York, NY
Senior Production Coordinator, KCD Productions, New York, NY
Operations Manager, New Orleans Film Foundation, New Orleans, LA
Hospitality Coordinator, New Orleans Film Festival, New Orleans, LA
Production Office Manager, Maven Pictures + Olive Productions, New York
Production Coordinator, Live Arts Gala, Live Arts Theater, Charlottesville
Venue Manager, American High School Theatre Festival, WorldStrides, Edinburgh, Scotland
Artistic & Scholarly Engagements2024-25 Reader: PEN America Emerging Voices Fellowship, Perugia Press Prize
2023-24 Participant
Graduate Independent Study
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
2023
Judge, Teeny Tiny Trifecta 6, Second Street Gallery, Charlottesville, Va
Guest Lecturer, “Forging Theatre and Community,” University of Virginia, ARTH2559: Performing Acts of Justice and Equity;
Reader: The Plentitudes, Perugia Press Prize
2022
Speaker, “Intimate Labors: Witness at Work,” Performative Lecture, DisruptHR, Charlottesville, Virginia
Reader: The Plentitudes, PEN America EV Fellowship, Perugia Press Prize
2021
Instructor, Create & Critique, Second Street Gallery, “On the Poetics of Black Womanhood & The Making of Beloved,” Performative Lecture, McGuffey Art Center, Charlottesville, Virginia
2019
Advisor, Mere Distinction of Color Digital! Creation Team, James Madison’s Montpelier
Judge, Invisible C’ville Prize, Bushman-Dreyfus Architects, Charlottesville, Va
Artistic & Academic Foci
Black “maternal” rhetoric, American Southern surrealist jazz logic/s, and Afrofabulative hybridity
Critical theory, cultural and performance studies, and artistic/practice-based research methodologies
Media/eco-aesthetics, autopoiesis, and other grammars of fugitivity
Selected Publications
Excerpted Public Performative Lecture Portfolio
2024
“The Architecture of Memory: An Articularity of Sankofic Attunement & other Fabulative Aesthetics in a Blackened Void,” MFA Thesis, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
2023
Acknowledgments & Projections: Sweet Thing, No. 76, Apogee Journal, Issue 18
Wake, et al., Burnaway Magazine
2022
Arrangement, The Plentitudes
2021
Archive of Treasured Baggage, The Night Heron Barks, (Nominated: “Best of the Net 2021”)
2019
Four Women, Dear Lois Magazine
Child of Promise, Spark + Echo Arts
Three Poems, Puerto del Sol Magazine
2023
“The Uses of the Erotic”: Considering Imperative Aliveness with Audre Lorde Self-Portraiture, and Carrie Mae Weems’ The Kitchen Table Series
Arrivals & Departures: Making Kin in the Capitalocene
2022
Shuri Keeps the Flame: Righteous Black Sisterly Rage & the Burial of Kings
2021
“Matriarchy as Creative Force,” Creative Mornings, Charlottesville, Va
Duplex: Jericho Brown Knows Everything is Everything
Sculptural Love Languages in a Key Domestic
2020
Cassie Louise Lightfoot, Eloise Greenfield, and the People Who Flew: Fugitive
Poetics of Childhood
Awards
2025
Fellow, Periplus Collective, Mentor: Rajiv Mohabir
Nominee, AICAD Teaching Fellowship
2024-25
Helena Rubenstein Fellow, Critical Studies, Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, New York, NY
Semi-Finalist, Creative Capital Awards, Visual Arts
2023
Scholar, Tin House Winter Workshop; Instructor: Xan Forest Phillips
Fellow, Burnaway Art Writing Incubator, Burnaway, “On Critical Movements”
Fellow, Unsettling Grounds Project, The Bridge Progressive Arts Institute
2022
Finalist: New City Arts Research Fellowship, Charlottesville, Va
2021
Fellow, Emerging Voices, Poetry, PEN America
Artist-in-Residence, McGuffey Art Center
Performances, Installations, & Exhibitions
2024
Prologue [I Shall Become a Collector of Myself and Put Meat on My Soul], Group Exhibit, Installation, Low-Residency MFA Exhibition, SAIC Galleries, Chicago
practice & Archive of Treasured Baggage, Group Exhibit, Single-Channel Film Installation, “Initiations,” Sonja Hayes Stone Center for Black Culture and History, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
2023
Beloved, Group Exhibit, Installed Sound Performance, “What Did You Expect?” SAIC Galleries, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Founding Mothers, Collaborative Performance, Public work + AR interface for the “Unsettling Grounds” Project, Sponsored by the NEA and The Bridge Progressive Arts Institute in partnership with Visible Records, Charlottesville, Virginia
Prologue, Solo Exhibit, Installed Performance for Second Year Review Showcase, MacLean Center, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Monument No. I, Group Exhibit, Installed Performance, SAIC Galleries, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
a tiny history, Group Screening, SAIC Galleries, School of the Art Institue of Chicago
2022
Practice, Solo Screening, SAIC Galleries, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
2021
On God, Collaborative Site-Specific Performance, Labyrinth, Little Scaly Mountain, Highlands, Blue Ridge Mountains, North Carolina
Beloved, Group Exhibit, Installed Sound Performance, “Water: The Agony and The Ecstasy of the Black Experience”, McGuffey Art Center, Charlottesville, Virginia; Curated by: Charlottesville Black Arts Collective
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copyright © 2025 | Adrienne Oliver