Between Pheasants Contemporary

Exhibition Statement:

This exhibition is praxis. More specifically, Across time, across the table, across the bay is an unraveling, a way of working backwards, and a commitment to future building. Justine Woods’ research-design practice centres Indigenous fashion technologies and garment-making as a practice-based method of inquiry towards re-stitching alternative worlds that prioritize Indigenous resurgence and liberation. Her work foregrounds all of the relationships that make up her identity as a Penetanguishene Aabitaawikwe; an identity she has inherited from her family and her Aabitaawizininiwag Ancestors. With each stitch and every bead, Woods traverses across temporal boundaries as her artworks and designs become portals that open ancestral knowledge, and usher to future worlds as a methodological approach to resurgence. While Across time, across the table, across the bay brings together four respective stand-alone works, each piece elicits Woods’ sustained praxis of beadwork as forms of: love; ethics; relationality; kinship; resistance; compassion; and offerings. 

Gently strewn across the coop’s roost bar, Geyaabi Inayaamin Omaa is a dedication to all Indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirit kin whose bodies have been victimized by settler violence and is a response of refusal to the colonial domination of Indigenous bodies. Using the foundation of a waist corset (a western garment used as a colonial mechanism to reinforce settler distinctions between the civilized versus uncivilized, and binary notions of gender) this piece facilitates visual dialogue around the ways which Indigenous bodies have been and continue to be regulated, restricted, constrained and oppressed by colonial power structures.The corset is also functionally wearable. When the corset is worn, the physical memory of the beaded text in relation to its interaction with the body leaves an imprint on the flesh. The interaction of flesh and beads acts as a collection of memory and reclamation of one’s body through the construction of the waist corset itself. When worn, the restricting tightness of the corset, in conjunction with the coming together of beadwork and skin, formulates a re-positioning of power and colonial constructs of womanhood and gender binaries through the transformative act of binding and unbinding the corset.

On the coop’s east wall, Stories of the Moon hangs as Woods’ interpretation of the Mackinaw jacket – a memory holder dedicated to her Aabitaawizininiwag ancestors and the land(s) where they lived. The phrases found on the sleeves of the jacket are words from journal entries in 1979 Woods found written by her late grandmother. The journal entry recounted family memories of herself, Woods’ father, and grandfather, and her great-grandfather travelling up to the Moon River (Ontario) to visit the Aabitaawizininiwag settlement where her great-grandfather was born. In November of 2019, Woods retraced her grandmother’s entry by travelling up to the Moon River with her father to spend time on the land, where Woods then wrote her own journal entries. The words found on the outside of the jacket are fragments of both Woods’ and her grandmother’s written memories. A series of beaded text is also found on the inside linings of the sleeves – these phrases are deeply personal and are only for Woods’ skin to feel and heart to know. This jacket is also a dedication to all Halfbreed / Métis / Aabitaawikwewag sewers whose recognition of craftswomenship and incredible garment construction skills were stolen and silenced from them through the settler colonial project. The Mackinaw jacket was originally sewn by Halfbreed / Métis / Aabitaawikwewag women sewers in 1811 on St. Joseph’s Island, with the style later being patented by American clothing company Filson. 

Also in the coop, Beaded Temporalities is the creative result of an exploration into the notion of visiting methodology through deep engagement with land, family and kinship centred within Indigenous ways of knowing and being. Citing Dylan Miner’s Methodology of Visiting and Janice Gaudet’s concept of Keeoukaywin: The Visiting Way, along with other supporting decolonizing methodologies, this piece is a visual embodiment of Indigenous temporal sovereignty and kinship practice. It is a collaborative piece beaded using peyote stitch by her and her family during the first COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in Spring 2020. Each bead stitched by Woods and her family holds the stories, knowledge and conversations that were talked about while visiting. The beads are purposely positioned in a gradient of colour to signify the movement of Indigenous temporalities across time and space that simultaneously move backwards and forwards. The piece does not have a proper beginning nor end; its continuity flows back and forth through the beads acting as a symbol for the continuance of embodying visiting within her family’s everyday lives as an act of decolonization. 

Atop a multi-use, rusted target-practice-burn-barrel, Woods’ piece Aaniish Mnik Aawiyin Wiisaakodewinini? echoes the circular shape of its support, and the beads throughout the exhibition. Centring language and beadwork as a methodology of resistance, Woods’ beaded text is presented in Anishinaabemowin as a rhetorical re-directed query towards the settler audience in response to an uninformed settler’s question “How Indigenous are you?”.

Fashioned all together, Geyaabi Inayaamin Omaa, Stories of the Moon, Beaded Temporalities, and Aaniish Mnik Aawiyin Wiisaakodewinini? demonstrate the praxis of Justine Woods’ beadwork as multi-temporal ways of knowing, being, loving, and resisting. Every stitch, every bead, every knot binds together her deep commitment to future world building through kinship. Across time, across the table, across the bay shows us that the beads – in both their material and cultural usages – hold space and support for Aabitaawizininiwag ways of being as a meeting point across time, across the kitchen table, across the forest floor, and across the frozen bay.[1]

[1] “Across the bay” is a phrase used to refer to the Halfbreed community of Penetanguishene who settled across the main town of Penetanguishene, Ontario after being displaced from Drummond Island in 1828. This phrase carries negative connotation and prejudice in reference to Halfbreed individuals and families who built diasporic roots across the Penetang harbour.

Artist Biography:

Justine Woods (she/her) is a garment artist, designer, creative scholar and educator based in Tkaronto (Toronto, Ontario). She is a current Doctoral Student in the Media and Design Innovation PhD program at X University (formally Ryerson) and holds a Master of Design from OCAD University and a Bachelor of Design in Fashion Design from X University. Justine’s research/design practice centres Indigenous fashion technologies and garment-making as a practice-based method of inquiry towards re-stitching alternative worlds that prioritize Indigenous resurgence and liberation. Her work foregrounds all of the relationships that make up her identity as a Penetanguishene Aabitaawikwe:; an identity she has inherited from her family and her Aabitaawizininiwag Ancestors. Justine is a descendant of the St. Onge and Berger-Beaudoin families. Her Ancestors come from Drummond Island (in what is now known as Michigan) and were relocated in 1828 to Penetanguishene, Ontario where they built diasporic roots with their kin and community that continue to hold strong to this present day. Justine was born and raised in Tiny, Ontario and is a member of what is known as the Georgian Bay Métis Community. Justine is a sessional instructor in the Fashion Department at X University and in the Indigenous Visual Culture Program at OCAD University.