Melissa Gronlund is a writer on art and cultural heritage.
Her work appears in newspapers, magazines, academic books, and on the radio. She focuses on the SWANA region and the digital realm and has lectured at numerous universities and events.
She has also authored and edited various books – dip in to see a selection of her work below.
About me
I write and edit with a number of hats on – but I am always focusing on the story that’s being told to me and the context it sits within.
I grew up in New York City and read comparative literature at Princeton, and later film aesthetics at the University of Oxford.
I was one of the editors of Afterall in London, while also teaching art history at Oxford and Central Saint Martins. During this time I wrote my first book, Contemporary Art and Digital Culture (Routledge).
In 2014 I moved to Abu Dhabi and I pivoted to writing in a more journalistic vein about the Arab region.
Now back in London, I combine these two approaches, whipsawing between academic-adjacent texts and story-based journalism. Happy also to be a board member of The Elephant Trust and of LUX.
Writings on art
A selection of articles for The Art Newspaper, The National, The London Review of Books, Artforum, The Financial Times, the Guardian and other titles about art from the SWANA (Southwest Asian and North African) region
Portfolio
Radio programs, films and podcasts
Find me on the BBC, The Art Newspaper’s Week in Art, CNN, and elsewhere
Academic writing
Peer-review and peer-review-adjacent texts on art, cultural heritage, and digital culture
Publications
Discover my love for the series comma in these tomes that I have edited and written
Get in Touch!
You can email me at melissakgronlund[@]gmail.com. or you can find me on Instagram (@mkgronlund) or X (@GronlundMelissa)