Dionne Custer Edwards

Head of Learning & Public Practice Dionne Custer Edwards is an award-winning educator and artist who has been a vital part of education initiatives at the Wexner Center for the Arts since 2005. Her work encompasses creating, leading, and supporting groundbreaking programs for learners of all ages, as well as a commitment to expansion, access, and inclusion in arts and education.

She has pioneered several innovative programs for K–12 students and educators, including the art and writing program Pages and university-level efforts like the lecture series Diversities in Practice. Custer Edwards is also affiliated faculty in Ohio State’s Department of Arts Administration, Education and Policy.

Custer Edwards has steered Learning & Public Practice residencies for numerous artists, including Ohio Poet Laureate Kari Gunter-Seymour and Sa’dia Rehman. She also worked with Rehman as curator of their 2023 exhibition the river runs slow and deep and all the bones of my ancestors / have risen to the surface to knock and click like the sounds of trees in the air.

Custer Edwards has also guided the expansion of learning opportunities for the Wex and its programming, such as a symposium to support Wexner Center for the Arts Executive Director Gaëtane Verna’s curation of the Canada Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale.

Custer Edwards serves as a board member for Arts Midwest and the Ohioana Library Association. She has presented on her work and research in arts education and been a featured speaker at several national conferences.

Her own critical and literary writing, as well as poetry and nonfiction, has been published nationally and internationally. Custer Edwards is coeditor for the book series On Possibility for The Ohio State University Press.

Custer Edwards has an MA in Arts Education and Creative Writing from Antioch University and a BA in English from The Ohio State University.