Michèle Karch-Ackerman: Museum of Her

Michèle Karch-Ackerman, Museum of Her, mixed media

Museum of Her
Michèle Karch-Ackerman

May 28 – July 18, 2026
Artist Talk: Saturday, June 6, 2026, 1 – 3pm
Agnes Jamieson Gallery, Minden

This exhibit is a ghostly capstone for the artist, Michèle Karch-Ackerman. It honours the wistful period of grief after the recent deaths of both her parents.

“The ancestors floated around me after my parents died. I became a conduit for my maternal and paternal aunties and uncles and grandparents dating back to the 1700’s. They tumbled out of me and onto tiny sheets of Washi paper and skidded around their new playground with splashes of white paint. They wanted to tell their own stories. They wanted me to find them. And so I did”.

The artist has an odd connection to the writer Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein. Her great, great, great, great grandmother Augusta Draper was a life-long friend to Edward Trelawney, who was a great friend of the Shelleys’, both Percy and Mary, and their friend Lord Byron. It was Edward who arranged the funeral of Percy Shelley on a beach in Italy after his tragic drowning death, which is forever captured in Louis Édouard Fournier’s 1889 painting The Funeral of Shelley.

The artist reached out to Mary Shelley during this time of her grief and began an ethereal correspondence with the famous writer.

Museum of Her houses all the artist’s explorations during this sensitive time: her letters to and from Mary Shelley, the desk she wrote them on and myriad tiny ancestral inspired artworks honouring her maternal and paternal ancestors.

The exhibit will be on display in the Agnes Jamieson Gallery (Kirkwood Room) from May 28 to July 18. An Artist Talk is scheduled for Saturday, June 6 from 1pm to 3pm. Refreshments will be served. All are welcome. Admission is by donation.

Artist Biography

Michèle Karch-Ackerman is a nationally recognized contemporary artist whose installations are known for inspiring viewers with their provocative and touching subject matter. Michèle’s work has been exhibited in over forty solo exhibitions at public galleries across Canada. A graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design, she is the recipient of numerous awards from the Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council.

Instagram @michelekarchackerman
Facebook @michele.karchackerman

The Agnes Jamieson Gallery is a public gallery with year-round visual exhibitions of local and regional art. The Gallery is part of the Minden Hills Cultural Centre which also includes the Heritage Village & Nature’s Place Interpretive Centre. The Gallery is fully accessible. Admission is by donation. The Minden Hills Cultural Centre is located at 176 Bobcaygeon Road, Minden.

Minden Hills Cultural Centre – Agnes Jamieson Gallery
176 Bobcaygeon Road, Minden, ON K0M 2K0
Open Tuesday – Saturday, 10am – 4pm
705-286-3763 | culturalcentre@mindenhills.ca

Instagram @MindenHillsCulturalCentre
Facebook @MindenCulturalCentre