Our Executive Director

Melissa Alexander

In her 18 years at the Exploratorium, Melissa has worked with renowned artists and scientists from all over the world. Her immense experience ranges from installing a beehive with artist Mark Thompson; facilitating monks depicting the history of Buddhism entering Tibet out of Yak butter; working with adult ESL students to create a personal exhibition examining their memory and culture; supporting the fabrication of art cars; hosting Lowriders, bicycle messengers, Trekkies, dance groups, artists working with wastewater and garbage; and overseen the creation of “Turbulent Landscapes,” a phenomenon-based art exhibition of 30 new works by 18 artists that traveled the United States and Europe; hung an opera set from the rafters of the museum; even programmed a public event involving a ton of raw bread dough.

Most recently, Melissa oversaw the development of Evidence: How do we know what we know?, a bilingual pilot project, for both English and Spanish-speaking audiences, designed to develop resources and interactive tools to help people understand not just how scientists assess evidence, but also how individuals construct a functional understanding of the world around them.

For these projects and many others, Melissa has forged connections with community and international partners, advisors, researchers, and funders. She has worked with people and institutions all over the world, presented her work at innumerable conferences, and traveled to Japan, Sweden, Germany, Southeast Asia, and the Arctic Circle, as well as throughout the United States.

About her new position, Melissa Alexander offers, “I accepted the position of Executive Director because the work of the organization captured my imagination. I recognized in BRAF individuals who embrace the notion that art must become a much more intrinsic part of civic life. BRAF artists, staff, board, and its community of supporters understand that the “real world” is the one we must invent together and recognize that this notion comes with a sense of adventure as well as a social responsibility.”
 
“BRAF invites many people to feast at the creative table, and provides artists working outside of traditional institutions—often with little support or recognition—a way to advance a vision that is inclusive of others, adaptive enough to translate in many places, and brave enough to address community and environment at a neighborhood level.”
 
“BRAF supporters and artists are not afraid of engaging with people. They invite others to help shape and actualize their vision. They recognize the waste stream as a danger to the environment and public life, so they invent new strategies for mining meaning from the refuse and reducing it.  They are not afraid of whimsy, or of inventing their own vernacular, one that engages many kinds people beyond those we traditionally name artists.”
 
Alexander adds, “I believe my role is one of service to the organization. I intend to continue the work already begun, building a solid platform on which these artists and their collaborators can stand; one that allows them to evolve their personal artistic expression and to include others in ways that are best suited to them and to the locality in which their work exists.”

Born to a military family, Melissa lived in many areas of the country before settling in California in the early1970’s. She attended high school locally and studied fine arts and sculpture at De Anza College, and San Francisco State University.

Combined with her experience, Melissa has always found the most personally satisfying rewards come from helping artists conceive and actualize their visions finding support for those visions in the larger community. This makes her uniquely suited to her new role as our next Executive Director. Melissa believes we “live in the world that we make up” which holds the duality of social responsibility and creativity.

Melissa has been an active participant in the Burning Man community since 2003 where her imagination was captured forever by what individuals can achieve on the playa and how they help each other create a place for their ideas to fruit.

It is with all this experience and energy that we welcome Melissa to BRAF and look forward to her enthusiastic and deeply seasoned leadership.