Geyaabi Indayaamin Omaa (We Are Still Here)

Seed beads on deer hide, 2020.

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Using the foundation of a waist corset, this piece facilitates visual dialogue around how Indigenous bodies have been and continue to be regulated, restricted, constrained and oppressed by colonial power structures. The corset is functionally wearable allowing the physical memory of the beaded text to imprint on the skin. This interaction of flesh and beads acts as a collection of memory and reclamation of one’s body through the construct of the waist corset itself. The restricting tightness of the corset when worn, in conjunction with the coming together of beadwork and skin, dismantles colonial constructs of womanhood through the transformative act of binding and unbinding the corset.