Artist and Curator in Conversation and Opening Reception for Beads in the Blood / mīgisak mīgohk: A Ruth Cuthand Retrospective
About
Join curator Felicia Gay and artist Ruth Cuthand for a conversation about the exhibition Beads in the Blood: A Ruth Cuthand Retrospective. Explore themes in the exhibition and celebrate the career of one of Canada’s most influential artists. The conversation will be followed by a reception and exhibition viewing.
Conversation in the Shumiatcher Theatre at 7 pm, exhibition viewing and reception in Craft Services to follow.
Beads in the Blood / mīgisak mīgohk: A Ruth Cuthand Retrospective, curated by Swampy Cree curator Felicia Gay, looks at Cuthand’s career from 1983 to 2024. It comprises new and past works, including video, mixed-media installation, and photography, and collaborative story-work between Cuthand and Gay. Cuthand’s life’s work is to tell stories that live beyond the aural realm and move into the visual. Story lives within the bead/mikis (mee-gis); it lives in our bodies, in our blood. Cuthand’s interest in beads as signifier, medium, and tool for decolonization began with Trading Series in 2009, an award-winning suite of twelve images of viruses. Eleven of the viruses were transmitted to Indigenous people through European contact during the process of colonization, while one virus travelled from Indigenous territory to Europe. Cuthand believes the bead is alive, and because it is alive, it is a story-keeper.
This event will be ASL interpreted.
Presenter Bios
Felicia Gay
Felicia Gay is muskego inninu iskew (Swampy Cree) from waskiyganeek (Cumberland House, SK) and belongs to the Opaskwayak Cree Nation, The Pas, MB. Her curatorial practice began in 2004 after graduating with a BA (Honours) in Art History from the University of Saskatchewan. In 2006 Gay co-founded The Red Shift Gallery with Joi Arcand in Saskatoon, SK. Gay returned to the University of Saskatchewan to earn an MA in Art History in 2010. She is a PhD candidate researching Indigenous curatorial practice at the University of Regina. In 2020, she received the SSHRC Joseph-Armand Bombardier Scholarship as a doctoral candidate. From 2019 to 2022, she was the MacKenzie Art Gallery’s first Mitacs Curatorial Fellow in partnership with the University of Regina, before joining the MacKenzie Art Gallery as Curator in 2024. Her most recent curatorial projects include the nationally touring retrospective The Art of Faye HeavyShield (2022–2024) and miskwaabik animiiki—Powerlines: The Art of Norval Morrisseau (2022). She received the 2018 Saskatchewan Arts Award for Leadership for her community-based curatorial practice.

Ruth Cuthand
Ruth Cuthand’s career as a visual artist, educator, and community advocate for women and BIPOC communities has impacted the Canadian cultural landscape in a multitude of ways. Born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Cuthand began her education at the University of Regina in 1977, and later transferred to the University of Saskatchewan, where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1983. She later pursued post-graduate studies at the University of Montana in 1985 before returning to the University of Saskatchewan to complete a Master of Fine Arts in 1992. Cuthand has been instrumental to the development of an experimental and expansive Indigenous art practice grounded in critically relevant subject matter. Cuthand taught as a professor at the University of Saskatchewan and the First Nations University of Canada (Saskatoon campus). In 2011, her work was the subject of the mid-career survey, Ruth Cuthand: Back Talk (1983-2009), curated by Jen Budney for the Mendel Art Gallery (Remai Modern) in Saskatoon. Her work is represented in major collections across Canada, including the National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Ontario, MacKenzie Art Gallery, and University of Saskatchewan Art Collection. Acknowledging her artmaking as well as her strategic mentorship, teaching, and community engagement, Cuthand’s honours include a Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan Artist Award (2013); University of Saskatchewan Arts & Science Alumni of Influence Award (2016); Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts (2020); Governor General’s Artistic Achievement Award (2023); and the Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship (2023). Cuthand currently lives and works in Saskatoon.
