KC Adams: Seven Generations

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KC Adams, “Seven Generations,” 2024

(courtesy of the Gallery)

Opening Reception: November 21 with a special reception starting at 4:00 pm with special guest dancers from Fisher River Cree Nation and a drum group.

Seven Generations brings together Adams’ digital photo-portrait series We Are Still Here with ancestor regalia from the Manitoba Museum and a newly commissioned short film. Together, these works exemplify Indigenous resilience and demonstrate the vitality of inter-generational matrilineal knowledge and creative making.

In response to the discovery of unmarked graves at Kamloops Residential School in 2021, Adams took to social media, inviting family and friends to bring their thriving school-age children to meet her at the Forks for a photo session. Her portraits of Indigenous youth are composed in seven layers to represent the seven generations teachings. She notes: “Each generation is responsible for the care and well-being of those generations coming after them. The work done today to heal ourselves will create a healing path for generations to come.” Careful scans of historical beadwork and quillwork from the Manitoba Museum’s HBC collection surround the youth in loving gestures that point to Indigenous ancestral protection and ways of knowing. These ancestor creations will also be shown in the gallery. For her new short film, Relational Making, Adams collaborates with young moms and their children who are regalia makers and powwow dancers from Fisher River Cree Nation to honour the beauty and teachings embedded in this evolving tradition.

Programming planned in conjunction with Seven Generations echoes Adams’ work as an Indigenous woman working in relation to and with community. The exhibition opens on November 28, the public is invited to visit campus to shop at the University of Winnipeg’s first-ever Indigenous Makers Market, featuring the work of 20 makers. The new year will bring a panel discussion and workshop. The exhibition will include an interpretive text by artist, curator and writer Becca Taylor, also a member of Fisher River Cree Nation.