{{Short description|American designer, artist, academic administrator}} {{Infobox person | name = Folayemi Wilson | other_names = Fo Wilson | birth_name = Folayemi Debra Wilson | alma_mater = New York University Stern School of Business (MBA),<ref name="Bateman"/><br/> Rhode Island School of Design (MFA)<ref name="Bateman"/> | occupation = designer, furniture maker, artist, curator, writer, academic administrator | known_for = graphic design, installation art, furniture design | movement = Afrofuturism | awards = MacDowell fellowship (2018)<ref name="MacDowell-2018" /> | website = {{URL|https://www.fowilson.com/}} }}
'''Folayemi "Fo" Debra Wilson''' is an American interdisciplinary artist, designer, and academic administrator. Her practice includes working as a furniture designer and maker,<ref>{{Cite book|last=Visser|first=Deirdre|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5qRaEAAAQBAJ|title=Joinery, Joists and Gender: A History of Woodworking for the 21st Century|date=2022-03-16|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-000-54549-4|pages=286|language=en}}</ref> installation artist,<ref name="Haystack-2021" /> muralist,<ref name="Wisniewski-2019">{{Cite web|last=Wisniewski|first=Mary|title=West Side must wait until 2021 for new CTA Green Line station at Damen|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-biz-cta-damen-green-line-station-20190503-story.html|access-date=2022-02-13|website=chicagotribune.com|date=3 May 2019 }}</ref> and graphic designer.<ref name="Bateman" /> Wilson is the first associate dean for access and equity in the Penn State College of Arts and Architecture.<ref name="Walsh-2021">{{Cite web|last=Walsh|first=Niall Patrick|date=July 19, 2021|title=Penn State Architecture appoints first associate dean for access and equity|url=https://archinect.com/news/article/150274651/penn-state-architecture-appoints-first-associate-dean-for-access-and-equity|access-date=2022-02-13|website=Archinect|language=en}}</ref><ref name="Best Architecture Masters-2021">{{Cite web|date=2021-07-21|title=News: Folayemi Wilson named as Penn State Arts & Architecture's first associate dean for access and equity|url=https://www.bestarchitecturemasters.com/news-folayemi-wilson-named-as-penn-state-arts-architectures-first-associate-dean-for-access-and-equity/|access-date=2022-02-13|website=Best Architecture Masters}}</ref>
== Early life and education == She is the youngest child of Katherine Elizabeth Kilpatrick Wilson, a hairdresser, and Milton H. Wilson Sr., a handy person who taught her how to upholster furniture in her teens. Her father was also an avid reader, whose many magazines inspired Wilson's imagination, as did his love of bright colors.<ref name="Moor-2023">{{Cite journal |last=Moor |first=Ayanah |date=2023 |title=An Oral History with Folayemi Wilson by Ayanah Moor |journal=Bomb|pages=106}}</ref>{{Better source needed|reason=The current source is insufficiently reliable (WP:NOTRS).|date=May 2025}} After her mother died when she was thirteen years old, she was advised on graduating early from high school, and she began to travel and live on her own.<ref name="Bateman" />
Her brother introduced her to the National Black Theatre of Harlem (NBT) in 1972, where they attended "a happening" together.<ref name="Moor-2023" /> She appreciated the group's spiritual practices and began taking theatre classes to overcome her shyness, eventually joining the troupe.<ref name="Berry-2022" /> It was with the NBT that she traveled to Nigeria for six weeks to study Yoruba culture for a play the company was writing, a trip funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. She took on the name Folayemi during these influential travels.<ref name="Bateman" /><ref name="Moor-2023" />
Wilson is a self-taught graphic designer.<ref name="Bateman" /> She has an MBA degree from New York University Stern School of Business, and a MFA degree (2005) in furniture design from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).<ref name="Haystack-2021">{{Cite web|title=Conversation: Making Sound|url=https://www.haystack-mtn.org/2021-online-programs/conversation-folayemi-wilson|access-date=2022-02-13|website=Haystack Mountain School of Crafts|date=24 June 2021|language=en-US|archive-date=2022-02-13|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220213085522/https://www.haystack-mtn.org/2021-online-programs/conversation-folayemi-wilson|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="Bateman">{{Cite web|last1=Bateman|first1=Anita|last2=Vendryes|first2=Margaret|title=Onward Fo! From Graphic Designer To Conceptual Artist And More|url=http://iraaa.museum.hamptonu.edu/page/Onward-Fo!|access-date=2022-02-13|website=International Review of African American Art |archive-date=2022-07-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220702104031/http://iraaa.museum.hamptonu.edu/page/Onward-Fo!|url-status=dead}}</ref> During graduate study, she connected the formal and conceptual language of 20th-century Modernism with Black cultural memory and cosmology, noting that they "share the same roots."<ref name="Berry-2022" /> She also took furniture classes at UC Berkeley.<ref name="Bateman" />
== Design career == Wilson began designing while in the National Black Theatre of Harlem, designing posters and materials for the group.<ref name="Bateman" /> In her early career, Wilson worked as a graphic designer, art director, and creative director.<ref name="IRAA" /><ref name="Bateman" /> She worked for ''Essence,'' ''YSB,'' and ''Black Enterprise'' magazines''.<ref name="Bateman" />'' <ref name="Moor-2023" /> Ed Towles, the Art Director at ''Black Enterprise'', was a particular influence.<ref name="Moor-2023" /> In 1984, Wilson was named the first female art director at Essence.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9tRUAAAAMAAJ|title=Art Direction, Volume 36|date=April 1984|publisher=Advertising Trade Publications.|others=National Association of Art Directors, National Society of Art Directors|pages=8|language=en}}</ref> In 1991, she established ''Studio W.'', a graphic design studio, building off her professional experiences from work in the magazine industry.<ref name="Bateman" />
In August 2016, she co-founded the blkHaUS Studios with Norman Teague, a design studio based in Chicago.<ref name="Best Architecture Masters-2021" /><ref>{{Cite web|date=2021-03-11|title=The Chicago Monuments Project Grapples With The Hard History Of Some City Statues|url=https://www.wbez.org/stories/the-chicago-monuments-project-grapples-with-the-hard-history-of-some-city-statues/d3e0cf05-7b5d-4678-aa89-876c7ffc8822|access-date=2022-02-13|website=WBEZ Chicago|language=en}}</ref><ref name="Adamson">{{Cite web|last=Adamson|first=Glenn|title=The State of American Craft Has Never Been Stronger|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/state-american-craft-never-been-stronger-180976483/|access-date=2022-02-13|website=Smithsonian Magazine|language=en}}</ref> Their work was social practice–focused, in order to make public spaces in Chicago more inviting.<ref name="Adamson" /> The blkHaUS Studios' ''Back Alley Jazz'' project worked to revive the jazz culture and traditions found in Chicago in the 1960s and 1970s; they brought together local musicians, architects and artists to build events and performance spaces.<ref name="Adamson" /><ref>{{Cite web|last=Reich|first=Howard|date=March 14, 2018|title=Back Alley Jazz Revives a Chicago Tradition|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/412186143/|url-access=subscription|access-date=2022-02-13|website=Newspapers.com|publisher=Chicago Tribune|pages=4–2|language=en}}</ref>
== Visual art career == In 1995, Wilson, along with artists Renee Cox, and Tony Cokes, created the Negro Art Collective (NAC) to fight cultural misrepresentations about Black Americans.Their first public intervention, ''Mama I Thought Only Black People Were Bad'', was a provocative street art campaign in New York and Los Angeles that challenged stereotypes of Black criminality using data and visual rhetoric.<ref name="Glass-2012">{{Cite journal |last=Glass |first=Liz |date=February 15, 2012 |title=Visiting Artist Profiles: Fo Wilson |journal=Art Practical}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|date=2010-09-17|title=Wilson, Fo. (active Milwaukee, WI, 2010)|url=http://aavad.com/artistbibliog.cfm?id=13281|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100917071554/http://aavad.com/artistbibliog.cfm?id=13281|archive-date=2010-09-17|access-date=2022-02-14|website=African American Visual Artists Database (AAVAD)}}</ref>
Her ''Seeing'' series (2006) included minimalist black furniture pieces juxtaposed with photographic diptychs and her own body, prompting viewers to question how racial and cultural identity are perceived and constructed through objects.<ref name="Glass-2012" />
In 2008, Wilson constructed a fictitious, 19th-century style scientific exhibition commemorating Saartje Baartman (also known as "The Hottentot Venus") during a residency at the School of Art + Design at SUNY/Purchase, called ''Hottentot Not!'' using bell jars and tables, accompanied by diary entries she wrote from Baartman's imagined perspective.<ref name="Glass-2012" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Wilson |first=Fo |title=The Baartman diaries |date=2013 |others=Carla Williams |isbn=978-0-615-67669-2 |location=Chicago, Illinois |oclc=967781217}}</ref><ref name="Bateman" /> The same year, she used excerpts from Nicki Minaj in her piece ''Sara's Lament,'' uplifting women in the name of Sartje Baartman and unfair racial representation in society.<ref name="Bateman" /> Wilson additionally explores similar issues regarding of race and prejudiced portrayals around the world in ''The Women Wanted Some of Me Too'' (2008).<ref name="Bateman" />
Her 2010 exhibition, ''The New Materiality: Digital Dialogues at the Boundaries of Contemporary Craft,'' explores relationship between handcraft practices and digital technology.<ref name="Bateman" />
Her 2016 installation ''Eliza's Peculiar Cabinet of Curiosities'', is a fictitious 19th century slave cabin constructed at full-scale, containing a cabinet of curiosities filled with 100 items representing what an African American woman of this time period may have owned or dreamed of owning.<ref name="IRAA">{{Cite web|title=A Look Inside Eliza's Cabinet of Curiosities|url=http://iraaa.museum.hamptonu.edu/page/A-Look-Inside-|access-date=2022-02-13|website=International Review of African American Art (IRAAA)|archive-date=2022-07-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220702104241/http://iraaa.museum.hamptonu.edu/page/A-Look-Inside-|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="Wisconsin Gazette-2016">{{Cite web|date=2016-07-29|title=Eliza's Peculiar Cabinet of Curiosities at Lynden Sculpture Garden|url=http://www.wisconsingazette.com/?p=39795|access-date=2022-02-13|website=Wisconsin Gazette|language=en-US}}{{Dead link|date=October 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot }}</ref> ''Eliza's Peculiar Cabinet of Curiosities'' was an ongoing, Afrofuturist project and was used as a location for related events and performances. It was on display from 2016 to 2017 at the Lynden Sculpture Garden in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.<ref name="Wisconsin Gazette-2016" /><ref>{{Cite web|date=June 19, 2016|title=Fo Wilson: Eliza's Peculiar Cabinet of Curiosities|url=https://www.lyndensculpturegarden.org/exhibitions/fo-wilson-elizas-peculiar-cabinet-curiosities|access-date=2022-02-13|website=Lynden Sculpture Garden|language=en}}</ref> In 2018, Wilson spent time at the John Michael Kohler Arts/Industry Artist Residency Program to work with pottery.<ref name="Moor-2023" />
In 2019, she was commissioned to create public art for the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) within the newly built Damen Green Line station.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2019-05-15|title=Damen Avenue at Lake Street transportation facility returns train access to neighborhood|url=https://www.bdcnetwork.com/damen-avenue-lake-street-transportation-facility-returns-train-access-neighborhood|access-date=2022-02-13|website=Building Design + Construction (BD + C)|language=en}}</ref><ref name="Wisniewski-2019" /><ref>{{Cite web|date=2019-05-06|title=New $60 Million Damen Green Line Station Set To Open In 2021, Officials Say|url=https://blockclubchicago.org/2019/05/06/new-60-million-damen-green-line-station-set-to-open-in-2021-officials-say/|access-date=2022-02-13|website=Block Club Chicago|language=en}}</ref> Her work is in the museum collection at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.<ref name="MacDowell-2018">{{Cite web|date=2018|title=Fo Wilson – Artist|url=https://www.macdowell.org/artists/fo-wilson|access-date=2022-02-13|website=MacDowell|language=en}}</ref> Wilson has served on the board of the American Craft Council (ACC).<ref name="MacDowell-2018" />
== Influences == Wilson’s early life and creative development are traced through her formative encounters with Afrofuturism, Black spirituality, and self-exploration. Her introduction to Afrofuturism began in adolescence through listening to Alice Coltrane’s ''Journey to Satchidananda'', sparking a new sense of self during years marked by meditation and spiritual chanting. She was also deeply influenced by Black Nationalism and the spiritual teachings she received at the National Black Theatre of Harlem. A pivotal moment for Wilson occurred in the summer of 1974, when she traveled to Nigeria to research Yoruba religion and culture for a play the NBT was writing called ''Soul Journey into Truth'', centered on Oshun, the goddess of love and fertility, envisioned as a liberating force for African Americans. While staying at the compound of the artist Twins Seven Seven in Osogbo Village and visiting the University of Ibadan, Wilson deepened her understanding of African spirituality, drew on her genetic connection to ''oriki'' (Yoruba praise poetry), and experienced a personal awakening through as̩e̩, the Yoruba concept of spiritual power.<ref name="Berry-2022">{{Cite journal |last=Berry |first=Anne H. |date=2022 |title=Dark Matter's Magic in Design |url= |journal=The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression & Reflection |via=EbscoHost}}</ref> She later returned to Nigeria to perform in Lagos at the International Arts Festival Festac ’77.<ref name="Berry-2022" />
This experience inspired her to create ''Dark Matter: Celestial Objects as Messengers of Love in These Troubled Times'', a solo exhibition presented at the Hyde Park Art Center (HPAC) in Chicago Illinois, March 31 through July 14, 2019.<ref name="terremoto.mx">{{Cite web |title=Imagining a Future Back to Itself |url=https://terremoto.mx/revista/37145?lang=en |access-date=2025-05-19 |website=terremoto.mx}}</ref> This exhibition is an immersive, multimedia installation that combines architecture, sculpture, sound, and video to create a celestial Afrofuturist environment that explores themes of ancestry, memory, and identity. It serves as a homage to the cultural figures, histories, and aesthetic movements that influenced Wilson's artistic practice.<ref name="terremoto.mx" /> ''Dark Matter'' references the transatlantic slave trade by evoking what Wilson calls a “transplanetary Middle Passage,” blending speculative futures with ancestral pasts. Through layered sensory elements, Wilson constructs a space for reflection on Black presence, absence, and becoming across time and space.<ref name="Berry-2022" /> The exhibit also offered opportunities for guided sound baths, meditation sessions, and sound recording events.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Silver |first=Tesh |date=2019-11-14 |title=Space is a Place: Folayemi Wilson at the Hyde Park Art Center |url=https://sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/space-is-a-place-folayemi-wilson-at-the-hyde-park-art-center/ |access-date=2025-05-19 |website=Sixty Inches From Center |language=en-US}}</ref>
== Academic career == In July 2021, Wilson was appointed as first associate dean for access and equity in the Penn State College of Arts and Architecture.<ref name="Walsh-2021" /><ref name="Best Architecture Masters-2021" /> She previously was the co-director of academic diversity, equity and inclusion at the Columbia College Chicago.<ref name="Walsh-2021" />
== Publications ==
* {{Cite book|last1=McLaughlin|first1=Beth|title=The New Materiality: Digital Dialogues at the Boundaries of Contemporary Craft|last2=Wilson|first2=Fo|publisher=Fuller Craft Museum|others=Stephanie Cole (artist)|year=2010|isbn=9780934358217|type=exhibition}} * Wilson, Fo (2013). ''The Baartman Diaries'' (Chicago, Illinois: Studio W Editions). * {{Cite book|title=Dark Matter: Celestial Objects as Messengers of Love in These Troubled Times|publisher=Candor Arts|others=Folayemi Wilson (artist)|year=2021|type=exhibition}}
== References == {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, Fo}} Category:Living people Category:People from Chicago Category:African-American designers Category:American furniture designers Category:New York University Stern School of Business alumni Category:Rhode Island School of Design alumni Category:American women installation artists Category:American installation artists Category:American women graphic designers Category:American graphic designers Category:American art directors Category:Afrofuturists Category:African-American graphic designers Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:African-American women academic administrators Category:American women academic administrators Category:African-American academic administrators Category:21st-century African-American academics Category:21st-century American academics Category:21st-century American women academics Category:African-American muralists