To Move Across the Land

To Move Across the Land

Carving, Weaving, Adornment

The Biennale d’art contemporain autochtone (BACA) is making a stop at the Musée de Rimouski for its eighth edition. For the occasion, curators Armando Perla and Michael Patten have brought together works by seventeen indigenous artists, creating a dialogue around materiality, territory, and the transmission of knowledge.

This exhibition brings together Indigenous and diasporic artists whose practices are rooted in printmaking, weaving, textile arts, embroidery, ornamentation and sculpture. Working with wood, stone, jade, basalt, shell, plant fibre, yarn, natural pigments, seeds, textiles and laser-cut canvas, the artists reclaim materials that embody site-specific histories, ecological relationships and knowledge cultivated through generations of craft. The exhibition fosters a dialogue between distinct artistic traditions while honouring their cultural specificity, revealing how techniques passed down by parents, grandparents, Elders and communities continue to evolve through contemporary art practice. At the heart of the exhibition, a video performance by Kaqchikel artist Jeff Cán Xicay captures the artist weaving, face-to-face with his mother, their bodies serving as mutual supports for two backstrap looms. The work reflects on family bonds, care and the intergenerational transmission of knowledge. Surrounding it, crocheted architectural interventions by K’iche’ artist Luisfer Morales transpose a technique learned from his mother directly into the gallery’s structure. Throughout the exhibition, sculptures, textiles, garments and adornments show how material knowledge is continually renewed through creation.

Keywords

indigenous art; BACA