Haley Mellin

Haley Mellin is an artist and land conservationist.

Haley Mellin grew up in Marin County north of San Francisco, California. She graduated from the University of California Berkeley in 2004, with an undergraduate degree in Art and Education, the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program in 2005, and NYU Steinhart with a PhD in Visual Culture and Education in 2012. She is an 8th generation Californian. Growing up in a community with open space, Mellin was interested in land conservation and biodiveristy preservation. She said, “As an artist, I will never make anything as great as a species, but I can draw invisible lines to protect them.” Listed among her influences is the climatologist Paul Hawken.

Mellin is a conservationist. She focuses on the creation of new permanent Protected Areas and conserving historic, intact ecosystems. She founded the Art to Acres not-for-profit in 2017 as the basis for engaging other artists, galleries and museums in supporting this work. She co-founded Conserve.org in 2018, to support people in having their first tangible experience of land conservation.

Mellin's conservation advisors are Dr. John Hurst, Kris Tompkins, Symen Simon, Dr. Peggy Dulany, Jack Dangermond, Karl Burkart and Dr. Thomas Lovejoy. Her conservation focus is tropical forests for deep carbon support (with an aim of carbon homeostasis), pristine wilderness and biodiversity. All conservation, by rule, is locally-led.Mellin committed to support the Cerro Amay, Guatemala National Park forest in 2017, with contract completion in 2018. Cerro Amay, Guatemala is the largest unprotected cloud forest in Northern Central America. This was the first conservation support provided. To date, about 22 million acres have been supported.

Mellin has been influential in bringing the arts community into sustainability. She co-founded the Museum of Contemporary Art Environmental Council, Los Angeles and Art and Climate Action, San Francisco, both 2020. Mellin supported the creation of Gallery Climate Coalition Los Angeles in 2021. She co-founded Artists Commit, an artist environmental sustainability group, in 2021 and co-founded Partners for Arts Climate Targets, both in 2021.

Recent art exhibitions include Museo Pino Pascali, Italy; Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Belgium; Zabludowicz Foundation, England; Retrospective, New York; East Broadway Mall, New York; Untitled Gallery, New York; Boesky Uptown, New York; Basilica, New York; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; RENTAL, New York; SculptureCenter, New York; the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain, Paris; Art in General, New York.; Explorers Club, New York, NY; Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; Art Basel Miami Beach, Miami, FL; Whitney Museum ISP, New York, NY; Biennale, Liverpool, England; U.C. Berkeley University Gallery, Berkeley, CA; Yale University Gallery, New Haven, CT; Zine Tornado, Ps1, Queens, New York.