All NSCAD campuses closed at noon, February 24, 2024 due to freezing rain. All campuses will reopen at 9 a.m. on February 25.

The Alfoldy Craft Institute

NSCAD University is proud of its history and strong commitment to teaching and research in the crafts. The Alfoldy Craft Institute (ACI) provides a framework for uniting diverse, cross-disciplinary craft activities through a focused research institute that brings the work of our makers and researchers to the international craft community.

This web page will be updated whenever possible to include the ACI’s projects, maker resources, and profiles of research fellows and scholarship winners.

Dr. Sandra Alfoldy

The ACI story

In 2016, NSCAD colleagues Dr. Sandra Alfoldy, Rory MacDonald and Gary Markle envisioned a craft ‘hub’ to facilitate and celebrate research and interdisciplinary collaboration. Together, they established the ACI to support engaged making, craft scholarship and the next generation of researchers. The ACI will also promote the sharing of Canadian craft and collaboration inside and outside the academic world.

Our dear friend and colleague Sandra passed in 2019, but gave her blessing for the Alfoldy Craft Institute to bear her name. Sandra’s scholarship helped shaped international understandings of contemporary craft. She was a tireless supporter of her students, co-workers, and colleagues around the world, and had a healthy suspicion of Tim Horton’s ‘artisanal’ sandwiches. The ACI strives to continue and further Sandra’s legacy of craft equity, scholarship, and innovative pedagogy.

The ACI mandate

The ACI works to cultivate collaborative networks of makers to promote craft research and practice across disciplinary and institutional boundaries by:

– encouraging creative approaches to research-creation, pedagogy, and dissemination
– facilitating local, national and international research partnerships across disciplinary and institutional boundaries
– fostering a new generation of undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral researchers

If you are interested in collaborating or would like to share a craft opportunity with the ACI, please contact craftinstitute@nscad.ca.