The Wayne State University School of Medicine’s Office of Faculty Affairs and Professional Development will explore “Art as an Agent of Change and Healing” during a virtual coffee hour April 28.

The Zoom meeting, scheduled from noon to 1 p.m., will feature guest speakers Sheryl Oring, M.F.A., professor and chair of the James Pearson Duffy Department of Art and Art History at Wayne State University, and Grace Serra, M.A., art curator at Wayne State University and the University of Michigan.

Oring’s work examines social issues through projects that incorporate old and new media to tell stories, examine public opinion and foster open exchange. She has typed thousands of postcards to the president since launching her “I Wish to Say” project in 2004. Her book, “Activating Democracy: The I Wish to Say Project,” was published by University of Chicago Press. In Fall 2020, she presented large-scale virtual versions of I Wish to Say with the University of Michigan and the Brooklyn Public Library.

Oring’s work has been shown at Bryant Park in New York, the Berlin Wall Memorial, the Jewish Museum in Berlin, the San Diego Museum of Art and at major international festivals. Her work is in collections that included the Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern Art and the Tate in London, and has been reviewed in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” and Der Spiegel. She has received public art commissions from airports in San Diego and Tampa, and from the Office of Public Art in Pittsburgh.

Serra was the arts coordinator for the Art in the Stations Public Arts Project for the Detroit People Mover, Detroit Receiving Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Michigan art collection programs, and served as editor for publications about these collections. As a leader in the field of Arts in Healthcare for more than 15 years, she served on the Steering Committee for the Arts in Health Symposium at the Detroit Institute of Arts in 2016 and 2017, and chaired the International Arts in Health Conference Planning Committee in 2014.

She was a featured speaker at the Alliance in Arts in Health Conference in Houston, the Society for Arts in Health Conference in San Francisco and Detroit, and the Arts in Health Symposium at the Detroit Institute of Arts. For almost 30 years, Serra has taught courses in the visual arts, art history and arts administration.

The event is open to all faculty, students and staff. Register for the coffee hour here.