Meet the Juror

Ian Alden Russell
Curator, Educator & Artistic Director
Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, PA

Ian Alden Russell is a curator, educator and artistic director. Currently working with the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, he previously held the post of Associate Professor and Director of the MA Programme in Cultural Management at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.  Prior to this, Russell held the posts of Artistic Director and Chief Curator with K11 in Beijing, Curator of Brown University’s David Winton Bell Gallery, Lecturer in Rhode Island School of Design’s Glass Department and Assistant Professor of Curating and Contemporary Art at Koç University in Istanbul, Turkey. Russell has also been a visiting critic at the University of Texas, Austin, Rhode Island School of Design and the School of Visual Arts New York. Russell received a Ph.D. in History from Trinity College Dublin and has held fellowships in Public Humanities at Brown University, Art and Archaeology at University College Dublin and the NEH Fellowship at the University of Notre Dame.

Select recent projects include: Design Consultant for Wafaa Bilal’s 186:01 at the House of Wisdom in Sharjah; Project Development Consultant for Tania Bruguera’s 10,148,451 for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern; Curator of Melvin Edwards’s Festivals, Funerals, and New Life featuring works by Jayne Cortez, Artpace San Antonio’s 2015 International-Artist-in-Residence program and the premiers of Mark Dion’s Against the Current, Fatma Bucak’s And men turned their faces from there, Vincent Valdez’s The Strangest Fruit.

Each year, the Wills Creek Committee champions this competition by selecting an accomplished and notable juror, soliciting sponsorship funds, and giving time, talent and commitment to the exhibition. The following are part of the team – thank you for all you do to support us.