Jen Budney is an independent writer and “reformed curator” who has held positions with the Mendel Art Gallery, Kamloops Art Gallery, Canada Council for the Arts, Gallery 101, and Flash Art International. She is also a PhD candidate in Public Policy at University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, where she is completing her dissertation, titled: The Imbecile Institution and the Limits of Public Engagement: The Art Museum and Structural Barriers to Public Value Creation. In 2017, she — most improbably — taught a course in microeconomics. Jen likes to collaborate. Her projects have dealt with wildness and architecture, monuments and colonialism, public art, pedagogy, and petroleum. With her two young children, she spends a good deal of time talking about bodily functions, living and dying, mean girls, dinosaurs, and robots. Jen also has a 14-year old border collie, named after Zora Neale Hurston, with whom she has hiked more than 10,000 miles.