FotoFest Hires Associate Curator and Director of Learning Program Advancement

The Houston art organization FotoFest International announced this week two new hires: Max Fields as Associate Curator and Director of Publications, and April M. Frazier as Director of Advancement for the Literacy Through Photography Learning Program.

Mr. Fields has a longstanding connection to the Houston art scene. Prior to attending graduate school at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, he worked for the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, and was the director and curator of the curatorial platform Suplex Projects, which hosted pop-up shows and exhibitions across Houston. More recently, Mr. Fields held a position at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts at the University of Houston, where he curated the 2019 Ten Tiny Dances program for CounterCurrent.

Mr. Fields’ other recent projects include The Color of Love, an exhibition in a small house gallery in Paris, Texas; Not Quite Verbatim, a show presented at the Hessel Museum of Art in Annandale-On-Hudson, NY; and an upcoming exhibition of Gareth Long’s works entitled Kidnappers Foil, which Mr. Fields is co-curating with Andrew Hibbard. Kidnappers Foil is set to open at the Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston in November of 2019.

Of his new position at FotoFest, Mr. Fields said:

“I have followed FotoFest for many years, and it has been incredibly exciting, as a fan and as a spectator, to watch the organization evolve and grow. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to work with the team and their Director Steven Evans. I am very much looking forward to collaborating with the renowned curator and scholar, Mark Sealy, Biennial 2020 curator, to present the upcoming Biennial’s exhibition.”

And Mr. Evans commented:

“[Mr. Fields] brings fresh insights and perspective to FotoFest that will activate our exhibitions and programs with a renewed intensity.” 

The organization’s second new hire, Ms. Frazier, has worked with FotoFest as a teaching artist in the Literacy Through Photography Learning Program since 2018. Designed to combine writing and imagery, the program is dedicated to helping bring art and ways of self-expression to classrooms and communities across the city. In a press release from FotoFest, Ms. Frazier noted her passion for the program:

“Working with the Literacy Through Photography program is the combination of two passions; photography and the opportunity to have a genuine impact on my community. Literacy Through Photography gives me the chance to incorporate my appreciation for photography into a curriculum built to reach people of diverse backgrounds with the hope that it provides exposure to new perspectives, methods of thinking, and approaches to life.” 

In addition to having her own professional and artistic photography practices, Ms. Frazier belongs to numerous photography groups around Houston. She is a graduate of Prairie View A&M University and Rice University’s Jones School of Business, and had a 15-year career in the energy industry before she decided to make photography her focus. While her own work focuses on “documenting her family’s ancestral roots in Texas, and enslaved migration from Africa to Jamaica,” Ms. Frazier also recently helped organize the exhibition Blacks at Rice: An Evolving Legacy, which celebrated the contributions of Black students to the univeristy.

Mr. Evans commented that during her time working as a contract employee for FotoFest, Ms. Frazier “consistently demonstrated remarkable passion and vision, as well as dedication to the students, teaching artists, and many partners of the learning program.”

Congratulations to Mr. Fields and Ms. Frazier!