Carrie Hertz

I am the Curator of Textiles and Dress at the Museum of International Folk Art. My work, most fundamentally, concerns the social, cultural, moral, and political dimensions of aesthetics and how these play out in the daily expressive lives of people.

In 2013, I earned my Ph.D. from the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University where I specialized in material culture, folk arts, and museum studies with a special emphasis on dress and adornment.

Before moving to Santa Fe, I directed a community-based public folk arts program and taught classes as Curator of Folk Arts at the Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University in Western New York. Reflecting upon that work, I published “Public Folklore Curatorship: Collaborating with Emerging Refugee Communities,” a chapter in Folklife and Museums: 21st Century Perspectives (edited by Kurt C. Dewhurst, Patricia Hall, and Charlie Seemann).

My most recent project is Dressing with Purpose: Belonging and Resistance in Scandinavia, an exhibition and forthcoming publication from Indiana University Press. My published research has also appeared in Museum Anthropology Review, Midwestern Folklore, Practicing Anthropology, Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore, Selvedge, Nordic Kultur, and has been cited in The Guardian.
Supervisors: Beth Buggenhagen, Jason Baird Jackson, Pravina Shukla, and Henry Glassie
Address: Museum of International Folk Art