These Threads Hold Memory, 2019
These Threads Hold Memory brings together works of art that decenter western notions of information and data by Indigenizing western information paradigms. This exhibition utilizes beading as a tool to share statistics, thoughts, and contemplate stereotypical and perhaps unknown narratives. By mixing what is known as “technology” such as websites, QR codes, and video with beadwork, this exhibition asks the viewer to recenter and value Indigenous histories and ways of knowing. Carrie Allison uses beading in her practice to connect to ancestors, to gain insight with Indigenous epistemologies and methodologies. Beading is ceremony, a meditative practice that centers oneself in the present, a repetitive gesture that asks the maker to consider the content of the object being made. Beading is, and always has been, a tool for engaging Indigenous ways of knowing and being. It’s not about the individual bead; it’s about the collective, the whole. Through labour intensive methodological processes, this exhibition situates Indigenous language, visual culture, and knowledge as legitimate technologies.
