Carrie Allison: These Threads Hold Memory

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Carrie Allison, "An Identity Metaphor," 2017

beads on pine with reflective surface, photo by Alexa Cude

Come join us for an opening reception for members and invited guests on Friday, July 5 at 8PM.

The New Gallery presents These Threads Hold Memory, an exhibition by Carrie Allison.

These Threads Hold Memory brings together works of art that decenter western notions of information and data by Indigenizing western information paradigms. This exhibition utilizes beading as a tool to share statistics, thoughts, and contemplate stereotypical and perhaps unknown narratives. By mixing what is known as “technology” such as websites, QR codes, and video with beadwork, this exhibition asks the viewer to recenter and value Indigenous histories and ways of knowing. Carrie Allison uses beading in her practice to connect to ancestors, to gain insight with Indigenous epistemologies and methodologies. Beading is ceremony, a meditative practice that centers oneself in the present, a repetitive gesture that asks the maker to consider the content of the object being made. Beading is, and always has been, a tool for engaging Indigenous ways of knowing and being. It’s not about the individual bead; it’s about the collective, the whole. Through labour intensive methodological processes, this exhibition situates Indigenous language, visual culture, and knowledge as legitimate technologies.

Biography Carrie Allison is an Indigenous (Cree/Métis, European descent) visual artist, writer, arts administrator and educator, born and raised on unceded and unsurrendered Coast Salish Territory (Vancouver, BC). Situated in K’jipuktuk since 2010, Allison’s practice responds to her maternal Cree and Métis ancestry, thinking through intergenerational cultural loss and acts of resilience, resistance, and activism, while also thinking through notions of allyship, kinship and visiting. Allison’s practice is rooted in research and pedagogical discourses. Her work seeks to reclaim, remember, recreate, and celebrate her ancestry through visual discourses. Allison holds a Master’s in Fine Art, a Bachelor’s in Fine Art, and a Bachelor’s in Art History from NSCAD University.