THOUGH ITS MOST-used materials are beads smaller than a penny, the latest exhibition in the Eiteljorg Museum is far from minuscule. Titled Radical Stitch, the show offers viewers one of the most significant examples of contemporary Indigenous art in a beautiful and comprehensive display of beadwork. Organized and circulated by the MacKenzie Art Gallery of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, and curated by Sherry Farrell Racette, Michelle LaVallee, and Cathy Mattes, the Eiteljorg’s exhibition is the last stop in a long gallery and museum tour—and the first to see the collection of works come to America.
Despite being a touring exhibition, it is described as “organic and flexible” by curator LaVallee. The show has no set floor plan, and the number of artists involved can range from 35 to over 50, allowing it to adapt to the preexisting collections and environments of the art galleries and museums where it resides. In many ways, this unconventional aspect of the show is instrumental, highlighting how important an inclusive community is to the creation and evolution of art.
Such importance is further emphasized in the one exception to the otherwise free-form floor plan, an honorific enclave created in one of the corners. “Many indigenous nations and tribes are matriarchal and matrilineal, and two-spirit, gender diverse folks, also play a very prominent role,” notes curator Mattes, a professor at the University of Winnipeg. This portion of the exhibition pays homage to the history and ever-evolving communal ties of these individuals, with one piece of beadwork in the section comprised of both precolonial wampum and contemporary Swarovski crystals.
Nadia Myre, one of the artists in the show and a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, describes the exhibition as “a reunion across time and space.” She elaborates, “It’s hard to kind of move ideas across Canada and the U.S. but makes complete sense in this case. If I think of my people, the Algonquin people—they were all the way down here, and so it’s part of family coming back, connecting.” Ultimately, far from simply subverting typical aesthetic expectations, the exhibition exceeds them, allowing viewers to expand their minds in the process. Though there exists in the art world a prevalent and false dichotomy regarding the opposition between art and crafting, Radical Stitch shows just how wrong such a notion is. Amid mourning and laughter, art that confronts hard truths of the world, and art that seeks to transcend the world entirely, the show makes evident how the pitfalls of preconceived notions can get in the way of appreciation. Do away with them, and one might just be able to see planets in a string of beads, stories ever-unfolding in their universe, stitch by stitch.
