Melissa Smith is an arts writer based in Brooklyn. She graduated from NYU with a B.A. in Fine Arts before working for nearly a decade at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. After getting her master’s degree in journalism from Columbia, she launched her writing career, contributing profiles, reviews, and think-pieces on all things art to publications such as the New York Times, Artnet News, Quartz, and the Art Newspaper.
Laura van Straaten
As a feature writer —rather than a critic — Laura van Straaten has interviewed artists, gallerists, curators and collectors from more than a dozen countries for The New York Times and its style magazine T, The Wall Street Journal Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, New York magazine, Departures, Art Review, The Art Newspaper, artnet News, Harper’s Bazaar Art Arabia and other print and online media in the U.S and abroad. She enjoys writing for a broad readership, as well as for art world insiders, on artistic and curatorial intention and processes; the behind-the-scenes stories of what is exhibited and why; and “underdog” stories outside the big city art markets.
Nico Wheadon is the executive director of NXTHVN, a multidisciplinary arts incubator in New Haven, Connecticut. She is also an adjunct assistant professor of Art History and Africana Studies at Barnard College, and Professional Practices at Hartford Art School within the interdisciplinary MFA program. Wheadon is an independent writer and regular contributor to The Brooklyn Rail, Artnet and C&, with her first manuscript slated for publication by Rowman & Littlefield in 2020. She is the former director of public programs and community engagement at the Studio Museum in Harlem, where she was celebrated for the pioneering artist projects, community engagement initiatives, and strategic partnerships she delivered during her five-year tenure. She has lectured internationally at universities, conferences and symposia, and currently serves on the advisory boards for More Art, and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage. Through her highly collaborative and experimental practice, Wheadon mines the rich intersections of contemporary art, dialogic pedagogy and social practice. She holds an MA in Creative & Cultural Entrepreneurship from Goldsmith’s College, University of London, and a BA in Art-Semiotics from Brown University.