About
Sheryl Oring examines critical social issues through projects that incorporate old and new media to tell stories, examine public opinion and foster open exchange. Using tools typically employed by journalists (the camera, the typewriter, the pen, the interview and the archive) she builds on experience in her former profession to create installations, performances, prints, artist books, sculptures, and internet-based works that address themes of democracy, citizenship, free expression, first amendment rights, story-telling and activism through art.
Oring is a Creative Capital Fellow and has received grants from Franklin Furnace, New York Foundation for the Arts, the Puffin Foundation, and the North Carolina Council for the Arts. She has shown her work at the U.S. Pavilion of the Venice Architecture Biennale; Bryant Park in Manhattan; the Brooklyn Public Library; the Free Library of Philadelphia, the National Liberty Museum in Philadelphia; the Jewish Museum Berlin; and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. She has also presented work at Art in Odd Places in New York; the Art Prospect festival in St. Petersburg, Russia; Encuentro in Sao Paolo, Brazil; and the International Symposium on Electronic Art in Dubai.
She has completed public art commissions at the San Diego International Airport and at the Tampa International Airport. Collecting institutions include the Library of Congress; Museum of Modern Art; Tate Britain; Bibliothèque nationale de Luxembourg; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; La Jolla Athenaeum; Yale University; University of California, Irvine; and many other university libraries across the United States.
Alongside her art practice, Oring is an academic leader. She currently serves as Professor and Chair of the Department of Applied Design at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. Prior to joining App State, she worked as Professor and Dean of the School of Art at University of the Arts in Philadelphia; Professor and Chair of the James Pearson Duffy Department of Art, Art History, and Design at Wayne State University in Detroit; and as Assistant and Associate Professor in the School of Art at University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Oring has an active writing and publishing practice as well. Her book Activating Democracy: The ‘I Wish to Say’ Project was published by Intellect Books / University of Chicago Press. They are also the publishers of the forthcoming book Secretary to the People: Civic Engagement Through the Art of Sheryl Oring, edited by Corey Dzenko with Sheryl Oring and to be published in Fall 2026.
Oring also wrote the following book chapters:
“A Training Ground for the Future: Taking on Campus Issues With Art,” in Art As Social Action: An Introduction to the Principles & Practices of Teaching Social Practice Art, eds. Gregory Sholette, Chloë Bass and Social Practice Queens. New York, NY: Allworth Press, 2018.
“Everyone Was There: Travel Desk at the San Diego International Airport,” in Creative Collaboration in Art Practice, Research, and Pedagogy, eds. M. Kathryn Shields and Sunny Spillane. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018.
Watch video documentation of Oring’s work on vimeo.
Read about Oring’s work in these books:
Art Above Everything: One Woman’s Global Exploration of the Joys and Torments of a Creative Life, Stephanie Elizondo Griest. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2025.
Contemporary Citizenship, Art, and Visual Culture: Making and Being Made, eds. Corey Dzenko and Theresa Avila (Abingdon. Oxfordshire, UK: Routledge Advances Art and Visual Studies, 2018.
Something to Say: Thoughts on Art and Politics in America, Richard Klin and Lily Prince. Dunkirk, NY: Leapfrog Press, 2011.
Secretary to the People: Sheryl Oring uses a typewriter to activate democracy on the streets of Philly and beyond, 2025 exhibition at The Free Library of Philadelphia, curated by Suzanna Urminska. Photos: Daniel Jackson / Embassy: Interactive.
