Jen Mergel

Jen Mergel is a nationally respected Boston-based contemporary art curator and leader who invites creative exploration of her hometown’s histories to reimagine its potential futures. An alum of Harvard, Bard’s Center for Curatorial Studies, and the Center for Curatorial Leadership, she has organized more than 50 exhibitions for museum, academic, and outdoor venues. Her recent curatorial projects have focused on Boston’s Black Feminisms, Exquisite Corpse collaborations in times of pandemic, and Boston’s first intertribal mishoon burn in centuries. From 2010 to 2017, Jen headed the Contemporary Art Department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, after prior curatorial roles at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, and Addison Gallery of American Art, among others. In 2017, she left the museum context to more freely connect people with art in public spaces. With the Emerald Necklace Conservancy in 2018, she organized the award-winning citywide exhibition “Fog x FLO: Fujiko Nakaya on the Emerald Necklace.” She subsequently became the Conservancy’s inaugural Director of Cultural Partnerships & Parks Equity and led the award-winning initiative “Olmsted Now: Greater Boston’s Olmsted Bicentennial.” Since June 2023, Jen is the James & Audrey Foster Executive Director of the Esplanade Association, the non-profit that stewards Boston’s iconic landmarked state park along the Charles River (originally Quinobequin). She is actively building the Association’s capacity to co-create more impactful and inclusive experiences for the historic park’s 4 million annual visitors, especially through the 2026 opening of new campus of indoor and outdoor amenities for year-round cultural, recreational, environmental and social connection.