Opening Reception: Experimental Seeing and How to Grow the Cowpea
(Top) Russell Lee, Work of Homer Tate. Safford, Arizona, May 1940. Black and white negative. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration / Office of War Information. (Bottom) Heather Bird Harris, Water Film (Summer, Georgia), 2025. Wet cyanotype on canvas, indigo, and clay watercolor paints over film still on stretched paper sealed with beeswax. Courtesy of the artist.
The Visual Arts Center invites you to celebrate the opening of two exhibitions that explore the relationship between experimental education and artistic practice. Experimental Seeing: Russell Lee’s Pedagogical Legacy celebrates the founding of UT’s photography program by pioneering photographer and UT professor Russell Lee and features image-based works by 25 alumni of the UT MFA Photography program. How to Grow the Cowpea: Survival Strategies from the U.S. South explores climate change issues through interdisciplinary collaboration between scientists and artists who demonstrate pathways toward climate mitigation and adaptation.
Experimental Seeing: Russell Lee’s Pedagogical Legacy is co-curated by Teresa Hubbard, the William and Bettye Nowlin Professor in Photography, Department of Art and Art History, University of Texas at Austin, and Dr. Jana La Brasca, Critic-in-Residence, Core Residency Program, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
How to Grow the Cowpea: Survival Strategies from the U.S. South is curated by VAC Associate Curator Melissa Fandos and Erika Mei Chua Holum, Curator at The Dock Art Centre in Co. Leitrim, Ireland.
Support for the Visual Arts Center’s 2026–27 exhibitions is provided by Planet Texas 2050, the Every Page Foundation, the Green Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, the St. Elmo Arts Residency, the Texas Commission for the Arts, Debbie Dupré, Jeanne and Michael Klein, C.C. Marsh, Kathleen Irvin Loughlin, Colin Doyle and Lora Reynolds, the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Austin, the Leonian Foundation, Suzanne Deal Booth, and Gail and Rodney Susholtz. Additional support is provided by the Visual Arts Center Circle Members and individual donors.
Saint Arnold Brewing Company, Topo Chico, and Alienate Majesty offer in-kind support for VAC receptions and events.
