Jessica Baran is a St. Louis, Missouri-based writer and curator interested in the interplay between art, place, and identity. She’s the author of three poetry collections, and her art reviews and essays appear regularly in publications such as Artforum and Art in America, among others. In 2021 she received an Arts Writers Grant for short-form criticism from the Andy Warhol Foundation to support critical writing about artists and exhibitions situated across the greater Midwestern region. In the summer of 2022, She conducted research on the People’s Art Center of St. Louis (1945-1965) with the support of a Divided City graduate research fellowship.------

Alongside her freelance writing, which has included an art column for the alt-newsweekly the Riverfront Times (2008-2012), she’s spent over a decade organizing exhibitions and programming at a range of independent and community-focused art spaces in St. Louis. From 2008-2011, she was the Assistant Director of White Flag Projects; from 2012-2016, she was the Director of fort gondo compound for the arts; and from 2017-2021, she was the Director of Curatorial and Program Development at Barrett Barrera Projects (2017-2021). She is also an educator who has instructed and advised graduate students in the MFA program at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Art (2012-2017); taught writing courses in St. Louis University’s Prison Arts & Education program (2013-2017); and overseen numerous public workshops, discussions and literary events.-------