Michèle Pearson Clarke is an artist, writer and educator who works in photography, film, video and installation. Using archival, performative and process-oriented strategies, her work situates grief as a site of possibility for social engagement and political connection. Born in Trinidad and based in Toronto, her work has been included in exhibitions and screenings at the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Royal Ontario Museum, Lagos Photo Festival, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Maryland Institute College of Art, ltd los angeles, Ryerson Image Centre, and Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography. From 2016-2017, Clarke was artist-in-residence at Gallery 44, and she was the inaugural 2020-2021 artist-in-residence at the University of Toronto’s Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies. Clarke’s writing has been published in Canadian Art, Transition Magazine, Momus, and The Toronto Star and in 2018, she was a speaker at the eighth TEDxPortofSpain. Most recently, Clarke served as the second Photo Laureate for the City of Toronto (2019-2022), and her work was added to the collection of the National Gallery of Canada. Clarke holds a Master of Social Work from the University of Toronto, and in 2015 she received her Master of Fine Arts in Documentary Media from Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson), where she is an Assistant Professor in Photography in the School of Image Arts.