Andrea Mellard creates platforms for audiences to come together, investigate contemporary art, and create new experiences and ideas. Since 2013, she has been the Director of Public Programs and Community Engagement at The Contemporary Austin. She curates innovative, experimental programming that takes advantage of the art museum’s two distinct sites—the urban Jones Center and the natural Betty and Edward Marcus Sculpture Park at Laguna Gloria. In addition to outdoor film series and lectures, her recent projects with Janine Antoni & Stephen Petronio, Charles Atlas, Sanford Biggers, Sam Green & Yo La Tengo, Ragnar Kjartansson, Lucky Dragons, and Mark Mothersbaugh brought their performances to Austin. For a 2019 participatory exhibition by Abraham Cruzvillegas, Mellard coordinated over sixty diverse community activations incorporating the artist’s work. From 2004 to 2013, in addition to organizing public programs, she curated and coordinated exhibitions for the Austin Museum of Art, featuring local artists in a new works gallery series and regional triennials, and presenting an artist-designed interactive mini golf course for Laguna Gloria. She continues to support Austin artists through the Crit Group program she pioneered, which has offered over fifty artists feedback, professional development, and community building since 2014. Mellard has over nineteen years of museum experience, and an MA in American Studies from The University of Texas at Austin inflects her interdisciplinary approach and abiding curiosity in contemporary culture.