Visiting with Beadwork

Originally organized for the Galt Museum & Archives in Lethbridge, Alberta, this exhibition was titled Iiksisawaato’p Kainaiwa O’tookátákssin: Maana’pii ki niita’piitsitapii saatstakssin | We Visit with Kainaiwa Beadwork: A New Way and the Real Way of Design and featured panels with photographs of traditional Kainai beadwork from the Glenbow Museum Archives and stories of contemporary Kainai beadworkers.

When the opportunity arose to host this travelling exhibition at the Leighton Art Centre, it was important to us to include beadwork by Indigenous artists from our local communities and explore the rich histories and interwoven traditions of Indigenous beadwork practices from beadworkers across southern Alberta. By featuring contemporary work from Metis, Cree, and Tsuut’ina communities – alongside the contemporary and historical Kainai beadwork included in the travelling exhibition – our aim is to foster a deeper connection with local beadworkers and honour the diverse Indigenous beadwork cultures present across this land.

To that end, we are thrilled to include beadwork from Tania Big Plume, Karen Risbey, Jamie Rozema-Stinson (ikkinaanskakii), and Summer Supernant in this exhibition. These beadworkers, through a range of pieces, designs, and styles, represent their local communities and together, explore what contemporary Indigenous beadwork can look like today.

In conversation with the wall panels of Iiksisawaato’p Kainaiwa O’tookátákssin: We Visit with Kainaiwa Beadwork, we invite you to, as the adapted title suggests, visit with both the contemporary and historical beadwork: honour the traditional practices, recognize the deep threads that connect them, and reflect on the breadth of Indigenous beadwork traditions.