Curator Tour of Beads in the Blood / mīgisak mīgohk: A Ruth Cuthand Retrospective with Felicia Gay

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Join curator Felicia Gay in a guided tour of Beads in the Blood / mīgisak mīgohk: A Ruth Cuthand Retrospective on view at the MacKenzie Art Gallery until 28 March 2025.

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.

Presenter Bio

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.  

A person with a topknot hairstyle smiles while standing against a beige textured wall. They wear glasses, long beaded earrings, a bright pink blazer, and a black top with light blue jeans. Their hands are casually placed in their pockets.