Melissa Fandos is the Associate Curator at the Visual Arts Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research considers how history, time, people, and power interact within the natural environment. Recent curatorial projects at the VAC include How to Grow the Cowpea: Survival Strategies from the U.S. South (co-curated with Erika Mei Chua Holum), Abby Flanagan: To Move Through Stone, Pablo Tut: Land Invention, Blackland Prairies (co-curated with Maysa Martins), Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork: Like a Breath of Fresh Water (co-curated with MacKenzie Stevens), If we are here… (curatorial assistance to Nicole Smythe–Johnson), and Las Nietas de Nonó: In Residence (curatorial assistance to Nicole Smythe–Johnson). Previosuly, Fandos held administrative and curatorial support roles at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, the public art triennial Counterpublic, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. She holds a BA in English from Grinnell College and an MA in Art History from the University of Texas at Austin.
Additional research interests include everyday life, artist-made cookbooks, walking, the Mississippi River, gardens, theories of archival research, and water infrastructure.
Melissa Fandos is the Associate Curator at the Visual Arts Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research considers how history, time, people, and power interact within the natural environment. Recent curatorial projects at the VAC include How to Grow the Cowpea: Survival Strategies from the U.S. South (co-curated with Erika Mei Chua Holum), Abby Flanagan: To Move Through Stone, Pablo Tut: Land Invention, Blackland Prairies (co-curated with Maysa Martins), Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork: Like a Breath of Fresh Water (co-curated with MacKenzie Stevens), If we are here… (curatorial assistance to Nicole Smythe–Johnson), and Las Nietas de Nonó: In Residence (curatorial assistance to Nicole Smythe–Johnson). Previosuly, Fandos held administrative and curatorial support roles at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, the public art triennial Counterpublic, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. She holds a BA in English from Grinnell College and an MA in Art History from the University of Texas at Austin.
Additional research interests include everyday life, artist-made cookbooks, walking, the Mississippi River, gardens, theories of archival research, and water infrastructure.