Opening Reception: Experimental Seeing and How to Grow the Cowpea

The Visual Arts Center is opening two new exhibitions on Friday, September 4, with a reception from 5 to 8 PM. Both shows look at the intersection of experimental education and artistic practice, and they're opening at the same time, so you can see them both in one go.

One is Experimental Seeing: Russell Lee's Pedagogical Legacy, co-curated by Teresa Hubbard and Dr. Jana La Brasca. It traces back to the founding of the University of Texas photography program by Russell Lee, a pioneering photographer and UT professor. The show brings together image-based work from 25 alumni of the UT MFA Photography program, so it's as much about where the program started as it is about where its students have gone since.

The other is How to Grow the Cowpea: Survival Strategies from the U.S. South, curated by Melissa Fandos and Erika Mei Chua Holum. This one takes on climate change through an interdisciplinary collaboration between scientists and artists, who map out pathways toward mitigation and adaptation. It's a different kind of experimental work—one that pulls in scientific research to look at how we live with a changing environment.

Both exhibitions are part of the Visual Arts Center's 2026-27 season, which draws support from Planet Texas 2050, the Every Page Foundation, the Green Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Texas Commission for the Arts, and several individual donors. The center itself is a 13,000-square-foot gallery on the UT campus that shows work by established national and international artists alongside students entering their professional careers, giving them a place to experiment and to curate and exhibit.

The reception runs from 5 to 8 PM on Friday, September 4, at the Visual Arts Center, located in the Art Building (ART) at 2301 San Jacinto Blvd. It's free and open to the public.