This flannel shirt? It's sculptural beadwork. Why it's called an act of resistance connecting past and present
Nico Williams says one of his favourite parts of the work is trickery involved
Aamjiwnaang artist Nico Williams has a stack of neon-dabbed bingo cards stuck to the fridge of his Montreal studio.
Flipping through the thick collection, Williams explains how his team will use these as models for his next project.
"You'll see a wall of all these different sparkly cards," said Williams.
That sparkle will come from the beads the artist and his team use to create beadwork sculpture pieces some say breathe new life into a traditional Indigenous practice.
Williams can't make it through explaining his future plans without sharing a funny memory the bingo cards trigger.
"I was actually playing bingo, collecting the cards and I won the jackpot. I was like 'Oh my gosh, how do I do this?!" he said through a huge smile.
In complete shock, his friends had to remind him to shout out 'bingo' so he could collect his prize.
Williams found himself in a similar state when he was awarded the Sobey Art Prize for his sculpted beadwork in November.
The award, organized and presented by the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, comes with a $100,000 prize.
"I was completely surprised," said Williams, who joins a roster of artists that includes Nadia Myre, a multidisciplinary artist he counts as one of his most influential role models.
Myre received that award in 2014, right around the same time Williams picked up beading.
"Being like a bush kid and seeing another Indigenous person get that award, it gave me hope. So I hope that this also gives all those bush kids out there some hope too."
Williams and his team of seven or eleven artists that he works with have been credited with creating work that connects people to a traditional practice while breaking stereotypes.
"All these cards are winners," said Williams, thinking back to the bingo games he's played with other artists in Montreal and nearby Kahnawake.
The plan is to show the completed bingo cards in an upcoming exhibition.
New take on traditional works
Back in Aamjiwnaang, the southwestern Ontario First Nation where Williams is from, a piece he gave as a gift hangs outside of the chief's office as a recognition of his impact.
"We are very proud of him and would like everyone to be able to see his work," said Marine Plain, an Aamjiwnaang councillor who oversees the heritage and culture group.
Plain, who remembers Williams as a happy kid when he was growing up, said his work is celebrated by the young men and women who do beadwork in Aamjiwnaang.
"That gets them thinking about creating new ideas out of our traditional ways," said Plain.
Williams said his team is always looking for ways to weave traditions into their work, which includes beaded grocery flyers, a flannel shirt, camp chairs, scratch tickets and a Grand Theft Auto video game cover.
"Our ancestors have been working with beads and the material since the colonists brought it in and we turned that into something the world had never seen before," said Williams.
Now, he's carrying on that pathway with beadwork sculptures that often leave people confused, then connected.
"They're walking in the gallery and they'll see a newspaper flyer on the wall... and they get closer and they realize that J-cloth in front of their eyes is actually made up of like 40,000 beads," said Williams, who enjoys what he calls the trickery in the work.
That's when the messages — like the ones he gets about the scratch tickets on display at the gallery — start to hit his inbox.
"They'll be like 'Oh, my mom used to get me those at Christmas!," said Williams.
Work 'connecting past and present'
Michelle LaVallee, the director of the Indigenous ways and decolonization department at the National Gallery of Canada, believes that Williams and his team are building on generations of teachings.
"For bead workers themselves, seeing work by other beaders is extremely exciting and inspiring," said LaVallee.
"It really is breathing this exciting life into what he's creating, and connecting and inspiring people."
She's part of a group curating an exhibit called Radical Stitch that includes 101 works by 44 First Nations, Inuit and Metis artists displayed across Canada and the United States.
"These contemporary artists like Nico are really sewing us into relation with one another, connecting past and present in terms of the material and the skills."
LaVallee, who said she's slowly becoming a beader herself, highlights Williams' work because it breaks the mould.
"Producing these objects that counter ongoing stereotypes and ideas of what beadwork should be or look like, or artwork that should be produced by an Indigenous artist," said LaVallee.
"So beadwork in and of itself, the work that Nico is creating, is an act of resistance."
Williams said he picked up beadwork after heading into a store in Montreal.
"I never thought that I would be where I am today when I had just, you know, started walking down Saint Denis Street here in Montreal and then walking into a bead store that's now closed," he said. "But if I wouldn't have went in and fell in love with the material, I wouldn't have started to make all these new things that I'm working with," he said.
His work has been part of exhibits across the country and in the United States, including an installation that put beadwork on the steps of the Brooklyn Museum.
"It is very exciting and it has, in some way, been a relatively short period of time where he has gained this critical attention nationally and internationally," said LaVallee.
She believes it's because of the skill in the work and the dedication to the craft but also because the work is very approachable and engaging.
"I think those who have first-hand lived experience as Indigenous people will read it one way. There's definitely hints and stories captured within these creations that are specific to the Indigenous experience," said LaValle.
"But I think also those from other cultures, because often their everyday objects or or found objects that he's replicating. There's stories and there's familiarity that people can really, really engage with and understand."
Williams said that's a key piece of the work that he hopes leads to larger discussions.
"I tried to make these stories that are relatable to Canadians and get them to realize Indigenous lived experience because there's a conversation there with all the pieces."
