September 17, 2026 to February 1, 2027
To Move Across the Land: Carving, Weaving, Adornment
Curators: Michael Patten & Armando Perla
La Biennale d’art contemporain autochtone (BACA), 8th edition
Musée de Rimouski (QC)
Opening Performance: Marilyn Boror Bor
Kinoo Arcentales, Quiereme Artesanal, Qaqaq (Kaka) Ashoona, Jason Baerg, Marta IX BALAM, Marilyn Boror Bor, Miguel Ángel Sosme Campos, Marcelo Galicia, Norman Gonzales, Byron Lopez, Luisfer Morales, Adamie Alaku Qakatuk, Shiñi’ beu’ Ramírez, Axangayou Shaa, Leah Shenandoah, TRAMA Textiles, Jeff Cán Xicay.
To Move Across the Land: Carving, Weaving, Adornment brings together Indigenous and diasporic artists whose practices are rooted in carving, weaving, fibre arts, fashion, embroidery, adornment, and sculpture. Working across wood, stone, jade, basalt, shell, vegetal fibres, thread, natural dyes, seeds, textiles, and laser-cut canvas, the artists engage materials that carry histories of place, ecological relationships, and knowledge cultivated through generations of making. The exhibition brings distinct artistic traditions into dialogue while honouring their cultural specificity, revealing how techniques passed between parents, grandparents, Elders, and communities continue to evolve through contemporary artistic practice.
At its centre, Jeff Cán Xicay’s video performance presents the Kaqchikel artist weaving face-to-face with his mother, their bodies serving as the reciprocal supports of two backstrap looms. The work offers a meditation on kinship, care, and the transmission of knowledge across generations. Around it, crocheted architectural interventions by K’iche’ artist Luisfer Morales extend a technique learned from his mother into the architecture of the gallery itself. Across the exhibition, sculpture, textiles, garments, and adornment demonstrate that material knowledge is continually renewed through making. These works trace relationships between land, family, memory, and artistic practice, showing how ancestral techniques remain dynamic ways of thinking, creating, and carrying Indigenous worlds into the future.
The Biennale d’art contemporain autochtone (BACA) would like to thank its partners the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Quebec, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Secrétariat aux relations avec les Premières Nations et les Inuit, the Conseil des arts de Montréal, Tourisme Montréal, the Collection Desjardins and Creative New Zealand.