Tatiana Mellema has a longstanding practice working in public art, academic research and curating and is the Curator of Outdoor Art at the Belkin. She holds an MA in Art History from Concordia and a PhD in Art History from the University of British Columbia. Since 2018, Mellema has worked as a public art planner with the City of Vancouver. Prior to this role, she worked at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Illingworth Kerr Gallery, Banff Centre, the National Gallery and at the Belkin as Curator of Academic Programs (2021/22). Through her work at the City of Vancouver, Mellema has realized major public art commissions, including Weekend Chime (2021) by Brady Cranfield, A Constellation of Remediation (2021) by T’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss and Anne Riley and Saltwater City Vancouver (2020) by Paul Wong. Her recent curatorial projects include Traces and Intervals (2022) at the Cinematheque, Spill Radio (2019) at the Belkin and Notes on the Nude (2016) at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Mellema has contributions forthcoming in edited volumes published by b_books (2024) and Routledge (2025), and her writing has been published in Canadian Art, cmagazine, Border Crossings and Black Flash. She is currently developing a book on the practices of North American artists in the 1970s and the engagement of socially reproductive labour.
The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at the University of British Columbia is pleased to announce that Tatiana Mellema has been appointed the gallery’s Curator of Outdoor Art effective August 14, 2024.
“I am excited to welcome Tatiana to the Belkin,” said the gallery’s Acting Director Melanie O’Brian. “Tatiana’s breadth of experience in curating, planning and realizing critical projects in the public realm with artists and community is exceptional. The Belkin looks forward to engaging with her curatorial ideas and expertise in developing future outdoor art projects and discourse around the ways art and its ideas are activated across communities, sites and spaces.”
Tatiana Mellema has a longstanding practice working in public art, academic research and curating. She holds an MA in Art History from Concordia and a PhD in Art History from the University of British Columbia. Since 2018, Mellema has worked as a public art planner with the City of Vancouver. Prior to this role, she worked at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Illingworth Kerr Gallery, Banff Centre, the National Gallery and at the Belkin as Curator of Academic Programs (2021/22).
“For the past eight years, my research has focused on historical discourses of ‘institutional critique’ and what change means at an individual and institutional level. I have looked to artists whose works index the gendered and racialized subject as a real everyday abstraction that the institution relies upon, and this has shaped my ongoing research, teaching and curatorial work that is committed to fostering critical practice,” said Mellema. “I am excited to develop a curatorial program in outdoor art with artists whose practices address the extraction of value from land and labour.”
Through her work at the City of Vancouver, Mellema has realized major public art commissions, including Weekend Chime (2021) by Brady Cranfield, A Constellation of Remediation (2021) by T’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss and Anne Riley and Saltwater City Vancouver (2020) by Paul Wong. Her recent curatorial projects include Traces and Intervals (2022) at the Cinematheque, Spill Radio (2019) at the Belkin and Notes on the Nude (2016) at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Mellema has contributions forthcoming in edited volumes published by b_books (2024) and Routledge (2025), and her writing has been published in Canadian Art, cmagazine, Border Crossings and Black Flash. She is currently developing a book on the practices of North American artists in the 1970s and the engagement of socially reproductive labour.
Tatiana Mellema has a longstanding practice working in public art, academic research and curating and is the Curator of Outdoor Art at the Belkin. She holds an MA in Art History from Concordia and a PhD in Art History from the University of British Columbia. Since 2018, Mellema has worked as a public art planner with the City of Vancouver. Prior to this role, she worked at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Illingworth Kerr Gallery, Banff Centre, the National Gallery and at the Belkin as Curator of Academic Programs (2021/22). Through her work at the City of Vancouver, Mellema has realized major public art commissions, including Weekend Chime (2021) by Brady Cranfield, A Constellation of Remediation (2021) by T’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss and Anne Riley and Saltwater City Vancouver (2020) by Paul Wong. Her recent curatorial projects include Traces and Intervals (2022) at the Cinematheque, Spill Radio (2019) at the Belkin and Notes on the Nude (2016) at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Mellema has contributions forthcoming in edited volumes published by b_books (2024) and Routledge (2025), and her writing has been published in Canadian Art, cmagazine, Border Crossings and Black Flash. She is currently developing a book on the practices of North American artists in the 1970s and the engagement of socially reproductive labour.