Michelle McGeough
Michelle McGeough. Photo by Julien McRoberts.
Michelle McGeough (Métis) is the Chair of the Art History/Museum Studies Department. Prior to her employment with IAIA, she was the Assistant Curator at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe.
Education
Michelle earned an AFA in 3-D art from IAIA, a BFA in Media Studies from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design and an M.A. in Art History from Carleton University. Michelle is currently working on coursework for her PhD in Native American Art History.
Major Professional Activities
McGeough’s primary area of research has been the application of feminist theory, especially the construction of the “Other,” to the Native American experience. She is also interested in the application of Indigenous research methodologies and the incoporation of these ways of knowing into the development of Art History and Museum Studies curriculum and in the curation of contemporary Native American Art.
Other areas of her research have focused on the Native American two-spirit identity. This has included an examination of the erotic paintings of Norval Morrisseau. Her M.A. thesis is entitled, “When Two Worldviews Collide: Norval Morrisseau and the Erotic.”
Ms. McGeough is also a board member of the Native American Art Studies Association. She is a member of the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective and the Native Indigenous Studies Association.
Selected Publications
In 2009, she completed a book on the role the progressive education movement played in providing an environment that enabled students attending the Santa Fe Indian School to express their identities as Native Americans. The book, entitled Through Their Eyes: Indian Painting in the Southwest 1918-1945, was released in 2009 in conjunction with the opening of the exhibition of the same title. Her writing is included in the Smithsonian’s Affinity of Nations and Manifestations: New Native Art Criticism as well as the Wicazo Sa Review.