Makiko Hara

Makiko Hara is an independent curator, lecturer, writer, and art consultant based in Vancouver. Since the late ’90s Hara has curated numerous notable contemporary art exhibitions and projects throughout the Asia Pacific Rim. From 2007 to 2013, she was Chief Curator/Deputy Director of Centre A: Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. Hara has worked with local and international visual artists on a variety of large-scale projects as an independent curator, including Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, Toronto (2009); AIR YONAGO, Tottori Geijyu Art Festival, Yonago, Japan (2014–15); Fictive Communities Asia–Koganecho Bazaar, Yokohama, Japan (2014); Rock Paper Scissors: Cindy Mochizuki, Yonago City Museum of Art, Tottori, Japan (2018); Whose Stories?, Kamloops Art Gallery, Canada (2021); and No Pain Like This Body, Offsite: Lani Maestro (2022–23) and PACE IN SPACE, Offsite: Pedro Reyes (2023), Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada. Between 2017 and 2022, Hara served the advisory committee at the International Exchange Center, Akita University of Art, Japan, and organized numerous international exchange programs. Hara co-founded Pacific Crossings, a British Columbia-based curatorial platform, in 2018. Pacific Crossings has initiated and organized numerous conversations, residencies and both online and offline cultural exchanges across the Pacific. Hara received the Alvin Balkind Curator’s Prize in 2020.