Michele Fiedler

Michele Fiedler sees curatorial practice as a possible form of activism, a platform of thought with the means to produce, and make public, critical knowledge that has not been part of dominant discourses. She is interested in how information is produced and dispersed, how it formulates ideas of the normal, their subversion, and in how art can be a democratic and experimental space that fosters conversation. Through her exhibition programs and research projects she has provided spaces for political art with perspectives towards gender issues and rights, LGBTTIQ rights movements, non-western cosmovisions, and art practices that have not been included in the bigger historical framework. Regarding this, she is interested in looking into how Canada has acknowledged abuses towards the First Nations, their marginalization, violentation, looting, objectification and mystification, and in the work curators and artists are doing to bring forward these experiences and ways of thinking that are not based on western traditions, as Mexico and the rest of Latin America share similar issues.

Believing and wanting the museum to be a complete and generous cultural space that should include a diverse (affordable, or free) program, in her work she allows spaces to engage people by including performance, sound, music, film, discussions and places for resting. During her residency at Fonderie Darling, Michele will also research the archives of architect Cedric Price and read into Lina Bo Bardi, to identify past ideals of engagement, time, work, and leisure space that is not commercial, but cultural.

Michele Fiedler is a Puerto Rican curator, researcher and writer, who has been based in Mexico for many years and who is now based in Montreal. She was the Curator at Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros in Mexico City from 2016-2019 and worked as an associate researcher for the project Below The Underground: Renegade Art and Action in 1990s Mexico which took place at The Armory Center in Pasadena, California as part of the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time LA/LA initiative. She has been Curator in Residence at the independent space Disjecta in Portland, Oregon (2016-17) and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin, Italy (2012).