THE INNOVATORS TALK SHOW

Andrea Grover is a curator, writer, and nonprofit arts leader with 25+ years of experience with socially engaged and interdisciplinary artistic practices. She is the Executive Director of Guild Hall, a historic civic arts institution in East Hampton, NY, founded during the Great Depression with a mission to build a better society through the arts. From 2022–25, she led a transformative renovation of the Guild Hall campus, modernizing its 1930s-era infrastructure to support contemporary performance, exhibition, and education. She simultaneously created an interdisciplinary program team that provides thought partners for new works like the recently developed First Literature Project (Shinnecock language revitalization in VR) by Wunetu Wequai Tarrant and Christian Scheider.

Grover began her career in community-centered art by founding Aurora Picture Show, Houston, in 1998, a nonprofit moving image art center originally located in her home, a converted church in the Sunset Heights. Her curatorial focus has long included artist-led experiments in public space, alternative infrastructures, and cross-disciplinary inquiry. While Curator of Special Projects at the Parrish Art Museum, she launched initiatives such as Parrish Road Show, Platform and PechaKucha Night Hamptons, and received a Tremaine Foundation grant and ADAA Curatorial Award for Radical Seafaring, a landmark exhibition of artists creating works on the water. At Carnegie Mellon University, she curated 29 Chains to the Moon and Intimate Science, exhibitions about artists’ solutions for global problems.

Through her writing and curating, she frequently engages themes of art, science, and social change. She has served on panels for the Pew, Rauschenberg, and Pulitzer Foundations, and taught at the University of Houston and Texas Southern University. She is a past fellow of the Warhol Foundation, Center for Curatorial Leadership, and Core Program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA from Syracuse University.

http://www.andreagrover.com/

Photo: Sean Zanni/PMc

Malcolm Carfrae, Founder and Principal, Carfrae Consulting, was born in Sydney, Australia and educated at both the University of Sydney and the University of California at Berkeley, where he achieved his Master’s Degree in History. Carfrae began his career in communications at Bryan Morel Public Relations in London, where he oversaw multiple fashion, beauty and lifestyle brands.

In 2003 Carfrae relocated to New York City as Vice President of Public Relations at Calvin Klein, Inc. In 2008, he was promoted to Executive Vice President and Chief Communications Officer, overseeing all communications for all CKI brands globally including the oversight of Public Relations, Corporate Communications, Special Events and Celebrity Relations. In 2014, Carfrae joined Ralph Lauren as Global Head of Communications, Public Relations and Media. In this role, he was tasked with oversight of Corporate Communications, Public Relations, Public Affairs, Philanthropy, Special Events, Celebrity Services, Social Media, Employee Communications and Media Buying for all brands globally including Ralph Lauren Collection, Polo Ralph Lauren, Ralph Lauren Home, Denim & Supply, Lauren and Chaps.

Carfrae left Ralph Lauren in May 2016 to establish Carfrae Consulting, a global branding and strategic communications consulting firm based in New York. Drawing on his expertise in worldwide communications, media, marketing and brand building over the past twenty years, Carfrae works with clients in the fashion, beauty, retail, luxury, shelter, hospitality and travel sectors to create bespoke strategies to achieve global recognition and success. His experience demonstrates a proven track record of building and executing creative, innovative and customized 360 degree solutions across a wide variety of categories and international markets.

Carfrae is the co-founder of the Australian Fashion Foundation; a US based nonprofit organization which supports emerging fashion talent in gaining international experience and mentorships. Carfrae is a mentor for the Incubator Program of the Council of Fashion Designers of America and is on the Board of the Australian Fashion Chamber.

Photo: BFA