Michelle Jacques (curator)

Born in 1965, Jacques studied at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, where she obtained a B.A. in art history and psychology, and at York University, where she earned her M.A.[1]

Jacques worked at the Art Gallery of Ontario for a number of years, holding positions including assistant curator of contemporary art and acting curator of Canadian art. She was the director of programming at the Centre for Art Tapes in Halifax, Nova Scotia from 2002 to 2004.[1] In 2012, she was named as the Chief Curator of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.[1]  At the AGGV, she has curated exhibitions of the work of contemporary artists including Carol Sawyer, Rodney Sayers and Emily Luce, Gwen MacGregor, and Hiraki Sawa; and has co-curated retrospective exhibitions of the work of the Canadian artists Anna Banana and Jock Macdonald. In the 2019 exhibition Unformable Things, she examined the work of Emily Carr alongside her Canadian contemporaries.[2] In 2020, Jacques was named Head of Exhibitions & Collections/Chief Curator at Remai Modern in Saskatoon.[3]

Jacques has taught writing and curatorial topics at institutions including NSCAD University, the University of Toronto Mississauga, and OCAD University.[4] She has served on the board of visual art organizations including Vtape, the Feminist Art Gallery and Mercer Union.[5] Her work as an art writer has included a contributing editorship at FUSE Magazine and numerous exhibition catalogue essays.[5] In 2019, Jacques served on the jury of the Middlebrook Prize for Young Curators.[6]