Michelle Jacques Curator
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

Michelle Jacques is a visual arts curator who works to create new points of entry to the museum space. Her recent work includes “Meanwhile, Anytime: Short Reflection on the History of Black Artists at the AGO,” which was part of Moving the Museum: Indigenous + Canadian Art at the AGO, co-edited by Wanda Nanibush and Georgiana Uhlyarik (2023), and Denyse Thomasos: just beyond, co-produced by Remai Modern and the Art Gallery of Ontario and curated with Sally Frater and Renée van der Avoird (2022). She was the recipient of the 2022 Hnatyshyn Foundation Award for Curatorial Excellence. Over the course of her 30-year career, Michelle has held positions in museums across Canada, mentored emerging curators and taught art history and curatorial studies at several universities. Michelle grew up in Toronto, Ontario, and now lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where she is the Director of Exhibitions and Collections and Chief Curator at Remai Modern.

“Jacques’s contributions to the field are formative and utterly unique. With unwavering commitment, intelligence, vision, wisdom, and above all poise and generosity of spirit, she is an inspiring role model, mentor, and creative thinker of the highest order. She thinks globally, contextually, and multi-disciplinarily, always embedded in the local and the current with the long view of entangled histories.”

Nominators: Sally Frater, Senior Curator/Curatorial Manager, Remai Modern, Denise Ryner, Andrea B. Laporte Curator, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Georgiana Uhlyarik, Fredrik S. Eaton Curator, Canadian Art & Co-lead Indigenous + Canadian Art, Art Gallery of Ontario

“[Jacques] thinks globally, contextually, and multi-disciplinarily[.]”