'I just want people to be dazzled,' artist Nico Williams opens exhibit at Ojibwe Cultural Foundation

A new exhibit at the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation, in M'Chigeeng, on Manitoulin Island, takes beadwork to a new level as the artist leads viewers on a journey through his childhood.

Nico Williams described his works as soft sculpture, in an interview prior to the opening of the show on Oct. 30, which is curated by Shaelynn Recollet.

The exhibit called Home Slice features beaded VHS cases of movies he watched as a child with his cousins.

"What we would do as kids is my grandma would pull out a big mattress and all the cousins would be sitting around the TV and we'd just be watching VHS tapes," he said.

"Thinking about Indigenous representation and film back in the day, it was a lot of, like, Pocahontas, you know, Indian in the Cupboard; and Smoke Signals, which is a beautiful representation of who we are."

He also beaded the case of a Pokémon Snap game that an aunt eventually pawned, pulling on another thread from his childhood.

"I really started to think about Indigenous economies, urban Indigenous experiences,and just weaving all those stories together," he said, noting he wasn't angry with his auntie who took him to powwows, and treated him and his cousin to meals.

In addition to the smaller beaded items, Williams is including a very large work.

"I was thinking about the Big Apple, the Big Nickel, the world's largest dream catcher," he said. "And then I was like, do you know, it would be funny if we present the world's largest moccasin."

The vamps feature cutouts of a plant he would see on walks in the bush with his grandmother who taught him about medicines, the greater plantain, known as "white man's foot."

Big Moccasin in M'Chigeeng

As for meaning and messages, Williams is happy to let the viewer decide.

"I just want people to be dazzled by the fact that we're continuing the work of our ancestors, that they've been working with beads for a long, long, long time," he said.

"And, you know, we're still working with that material and there is a big sense of humour within the Native community," said Williams, who laughs often, and points out his work has in-jokes for Indigenous viewers.

"We go through a lot of trauma, but we use humour to sort of move past it. So if there's that laughter, you know the joke there. It's wonderful."

Home Slice is installed at the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation until January 2025.