Earth and Mineral Sciences Museum and Art Gallery’s exhibition to open Jan. 22

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.  – The College of Earth and Mineral Sciences (EMS) Museum & Art Gallery has announced the opening of a new student-curated exhibit titled “Through Different Eyes: Industrial Worlds by Women Artists.”

The opening reception will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 22, in the Museum & Art Gallery located on the ground floor of the Deike Building on the Penn State University Park campus. The event is free and open to the public.

The new exhibit explores the lives of women artists in 20th-century industrial Pennsylvania through their artwork and premiers the curatorial work of undergraduate students Alexis Woodring, a public relations major, and Gabriella Heidorn, an art history major with a minor in French and Francophone studies, who both have special interests in American art.

Woodring and Heidorn analyzed and curated works from the EMS Steidle Collection of American Industrial Art, where nearly one quarter of the 130 artists represented in the collection are women. After researching each artist’s biography, they linked their backgrounds to foundational industries in Pittsburgh.

“One pivotal moment in our research was turning over a painting to find a concealed painting on the back,” Woodring said. “We found two paintings with this hidden feature, and it completely changed how we interpreted the collection.”.

Woodring and Heidorn said this exhibit explores these artists' unique points of view. As women whose lives were impacted by industrial labor and space, but whose perspectives differed from those of workers employed by those industries, the women's art creates a continuum of overlooked narratives in Pennsylvania's industrial history. 

The students had the opportunity to speak with one of the featured artists, Cynthia Cooley, who has received numerous awards and honors for her work including being named Artist of the Year at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts in 1989 and "Master Artist" in Pittsburgh in 1998. She has had 57 solo exhibitions, including a show at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C.

“Cooley was excited to show us a picture of her geared up to enter operating mines to take photos for her work,” Heidorn said. “She told us about how industrial structures and features, especially smoke, inspired her.”

The exhibit, “Through Different Eyes: Industrial Worlds by Women Artists,” will run through December 2026.

To learn more, visit the Steidle Collection of American Industrial Art online.

Additional exhibitions

'Hybrid Zones'

“Hybrid Zones,” which opened November 2025, is an immersive exploration of the post-industrial landscape of Eastern Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal region by Rachel Bacon and Meredith Davenport. The exhibit is in partnership with the HUB-Robeson Galleries.

Through drawing, photography and video installation, the artists trace the environmental and psychological imprint of centuries of resource extraction. In this powerful new body of work, Bacon and Davenport confront the entanglement of human and nonhuman systems, reflecting on how deeply industrial history is inscribed into the land — and into us.  

The exhibition in the EMS Museum & Art Gallery will close on March 4, 2027; the exhibition in the HUB-Robeson Galleries will close on March 8, 2027.

'Sustainability in Penn State Research'

The exhibition by Tsunami Sharmba, “Sustainability in Penn State Research,” which highlights student research by students in EMS, will also reopen. The exhibition is on display in main hallway of the Hosler Building.

Sharmba graduated from Penn State in 2024 with a bachelor’s degree in environmental systems engineering and a master’s degree in energy and mineral engineering though the Integrated Undergraduate-Graduate degree program. She also earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and a minor in watersheds and water resources. Currently she is pursuing a dual-title doctorate in geosciences and climate science at Penn State.