Whitehorse gallery exhibit shows off beauty and artistry of beaded earrings

Nine.

That's the number of times the word "bougie" was used in the Yukon Legislature on Wednesday, as MLAs from all three parties paid tribute to Teagyn Vallevand's first show as curator of the Hudę Njú Kú gallery in Whitehorse's Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre.

The show, which opened on March 14, is titled My Big Bougie Beaded* Earrings.

"I put … an asterisk because we didn't always use beads," Vallevand said. "We utilized other resources that are Yukon First Nations-specific."

Those Yukon-specific resources included home tanned hide, fish leather, porcupine quills, shells, foxtails, whale baleen, and at least five different kinds of fur, which were all found in the earrings at the gallery — along with modern seed beads, copper cones, commercial hide, sapphires, rubies, vinyl and rhinestones.

"I just love being able to learn and work with our traditional art styles," Vallevand said. "And then also, as an artist, playing with, 'What does contemporary Indigenous artwork mean?'"

Vallevand is a Kwanlin Dun citizen. In addition to being a curator, she is a beader, weaver and carver. She said she was was blown away by the interest in her first exhibit. Expecting to receive around 20 sets of earrings, she ended up getting 53 submissions from artists across the North.

"Yukon First Nations artisans went hard," she said.

Earrings as entrepreneurship 

Twenty-one pieces ended up on the gallery walls, but Vallevand didn't want to leave the others out. 

Instead, she added a retail element to the show. The earrings that didn't make it to the main exhibit are displayed in glass cases, and are available for sale.

"I feel like as an Indigenous artist, so many of us have made earrings," Vallevand says. "I know for myself as an artist, a couple of times I would sell earrings to make a couple extra dollars here and there to help support myself."

Many placards in the gallery shared stories of how beadwork connected the artists with their communities, their cultures and their ancestors. Many of the artists learned to bead from their grandmothers, great-grandmothers or uncles, and are now passing the skill on to future generations. 

Vallevand said beadwork can also be a survival skill, with women selling their work to help provide for their families. 

"I wanted to honour that," she said.

Living art and stories

What Vallevand wanted to honour is the idea that beadwork isn't a historical art form meant to hang on a museum wall. It's living, breathing culture, she said.

"I think it's really important now to have space as a Yukon First Nations curator to be able to … do things a little bit differently than how a normal exhibition works."

Vallevand says for her, being a curator is about storytelling. 

Her father was a storyteller at CBC, and she says in her new role, "I feel like I'm also telling a story. And so I feel really connected to him."  

As for being recognized in the Legislature, Vallevand says she wasn't expecting the kudos to come one after the other, from all three parties.

"I kind of felt like the queen," she says. "It was very cute." 

The My Big Bougie Beaded* Earrings show is on at the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre until May 20, 2025.