New ‘most significant’ installation to open at MacKenzie Art Gallery

A new exhibit at Regina’s MacKenzie Art Gallery is being billed by the gallery as “the most significant exhibition of contemporary indigenous beading across North America ever presented.”

Bev Koski, Banff #4, 2014, beads, found object. Indigenous Arts Centre. (provided)

The show was curated by Sherry Farrell Racette, Cathy Mattes and Michelle LaVallee.

Nico Williams, Amazon Bag, 2022, Glass beads. Photo Paul Litherland (provided)

LaVallee said she’d suggested the exhibition in 2016 but then she left the MacKenzie and it became a group endeavour. That actually made it a bit easier to put together during COVID when they couldn’t travel as much and not all of them could see a particular piece of artwork in person.

LaVallee is currently the director of Indigenous ways and decolonization at the National Gallery of Canada.

“The primary basis for the exhibition was beginning with identifying works considered canonical, perhaps, in beadwork shift from craft to fine art but also looking at community-based resurgence and finally its move into contemporary art galleries,” explained LaVallee.

She said they were looking to identify important emerging trends in the artists working today. Forty-eight artists are showcased in the exhibit, which LaVallee said makes it one of the largest exhibitions featuring contemporary beadwork to date.

“These artists are really sewing us in relation to one another, they’re connecting the past to the present (and) they’re reflecting on current times, histories – both personal and communal experiences and existence. But in doing so, they’re also creating new meaning and redefining representation and cultural determinism from an Indigenous lens,” said LaVallee.

Dana Claxton, Headdress – Jeneen, 2018, LED firebox with transmounted chromogenic transparency. Photo courtesy of the artist and Forge Project, NY. (provided)

Radical Stitch, according to LaVallee, is celebrating the innovation and tactile beauty of beads. She explained the dynamicism of the medium is meant to inspire.

“(The exhibition) is really inviting viewers to immerse themselves into not just the beauty of beadwork, but the political and creative dimensions, alongside the aesthetic dimensions of the beadwork,” she said.

LaVallee said it’s an exciting time right now because the opportunity to see art in person again is just opening up.

“This is a type of artwork that, in person, just has such a greater impact. It’s very tactile; it doesn’t translate as well through the digital medium of our screens. So I would definitely encourage people who can to come to the exhibition (and) to see these works in person,” said LaVallee.

The exhibition runs until Aug. 28.

LaVallee said they hope to have the exhibition tour to other museums and are working on a publication for it as well.