Woven Together

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Ursula Johnson, "Basket Weaving," 2015

Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Kim Anderson.

An opening reception on Friday, July 13, at 6 pm will feature a performance by The Salish Sisters: Tracey Kim Bonneau and Cease Wyss.

An Artists’ Panel will be held on Tuesday, July 17, beginning at 6 pm. It is moderated by Jaimie Isaac and will include a discussion with artists Meagan Musseau, Meghann O’Brien, and Tania Willard. This program is free to the public.

Woven Together features works by Indigenous artists Ursula Johnson, Meagan Musseau, Meghann O’Brien, and Tania Willard. Guest curated by Jaimie Isaac, Curator of Indigenous and Contemporary Art at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.

Each of these artists’ work explores basket weaving as a way to examine interwoven narratives and histories. These artists consider weaving a reflexive practice where the makers’ hands create interlaced actions through learned, contemplative, and repetitive processes that bind layers of knowledge and material.

Representing nations from Coast Salish Territory in British Columbia to Ktaqmkuk Territory in Newfoundland, Woven Together entangles practices, unravelling intergenerations and intertribal memories of matriarchal kinship, knowledge, and practice.

Ursula Johnson comes from a long line of Mi’kmaw artists. She has a background in photography, drawing, textiles, and theatre. In 2017, she won the prestigious Sobey Art Award, for her work as an emerging artist in the contemporary Canadian art scene.

Meagan Musseau is an interdisciplinary visual artist of Mi’kmaq and French ancestry from the community of Curling in the Bay of Islands, Newfoundland and Labrador— Elmastukwek, Ktaqmkuk territory of Mi’kma’ki. She works with customary art practices and new media, such as beadwork, basketry, land-based action and installation.

Meghann O’Brien is a Northwest Coast weaver from the community of Alert Bay, British Columbia. She works with an innovative approach to the traditional artforms of basketry, Yeil Koowu (Raven's Tail) and Naaxiin (Chilkat) textiles.

Tania Willard, of Secwépemc and settler heritage, is a visual artist and MFA candidate at UBCO Okanagan. She has participated in several public art projects, and recently has been working on her collaborative project entitled BUSH gallery, a conceptual land-based gallery grounded in Indigenous knowledges and relational art practices.