Dr. Michele Hardy
Contact information
Phone number
Office: +1 (403) 220-4137
Location
Office: TFDL530E
Preferred method of communication
Background
Educational Background
B.A. Anthropology, University of British Columbia, 1991
B.F.A. Fine Art, Nova Scotia Coll Art & Design, 1985
Doctor of Philosophy Anthropology, University of British Columbia, 2003
M.A. Clothing and Textiles, University of Alberta, 1995
Biography
Michele Hardy is a tenured Curator with Nickle Galleries at the University of Calgary. Hardy studied textiles and craft (BFA; MA) before earning a PhD in Cultural Anthropology. Her ongoing ethnographic research examines the changes affecting rural Muslim craftspeople in India as well as shifting craft traditions across Asia.
Hardy’s teaching and curatorial work seek to interrogate museums’ contemporary relevance and forge new creative connections between collections and community. Since 2005, she has curated more than three dozen exhibitions with a particular emphasis on Alberta craft and textiles. Highlights include the travelling exhibition Prairie Interlace: Weaving, Modernisms and the Expanded Frame (with Julia Krueger and Timothy Long), 2022-2024; Sandra Sawatzky: The Age of Uncertainty, 2022; Shona Rae: Re-Imagined Narratives, 2018; and John Chalke: Surface Tension, 2015. Between 2009-2022, Hardy served as Program Coordinator for Museum and Heritage Studies. She continues to teach within the program. She has supervised MFA graduate students and sits on a number of graduate supervisory committees.
Hardy regularly offers conference presentations and guest lectures on a variety of topics related to textiles, museums, and accessibility. She recently contributed the essay, Richard Boulet: Stitching Between the Lines and Against the Grain, in Baerwaldt (Ed.) 2022. Other recent publications include Embroidering Development: The Mutwa and Rann Utsav in Kutch, India, in Nakatani (Ed.) 2020, and Radical Access: Textiles and Museums (co-authored with Joanne Schmidt), in TSA Proceedings, 2018.
Projects
Prairie Interlace: Weaving, Modernisms and the Expanded Frame, 1960–2000 is a Heritage Canada funded research project that examines the explosion of innovative textile-based art on the Canadian prairies during the second half of the twentieth century. Focusing on the period 1960-2000, the project focuses on weaving and other interlace practices, such as rug hooking and crochet, examining how artists of diverse backgrounds wove new histories of fibre during a period of intense energy and collective creativity.
The project encompasses a major, travelling exhibition, a website, numerous public programs and a publication expected from the University of Calgary Press, Fall'23.
The project is a collaboration between Nickle Galleries (University of Calgary, Calgary, AB) and the MacKenzie Art Gallery (Regina, SK) and is curated by Michele Hardy, Julia Krueger and Timothy Long.
Awards
- University of Calgary Teaching Award (Librarians, Archivists, Curators), Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning, University of Calgary. 2019
- Provost Star Award , University of Calgary. 2017
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