While enjoying the veggie fest we stopped by the Harbourfront Centre’s Visual Arts Summer Exhibition. There was a display by seven Indigenous artists entitled Not So Fast/NSF, a commentary on our society’s rampant consumerism.

Bev Koski covers kitschy Native American tourist souvenirs with beads.  At first we thought the little beaded dolls were cute (they’re very, very small), but the artist’s words sent a chill down my spine and suddenly they weren’t so cute any more.

A few years ago, I had the idea of beading over small kitsch items depicting Indigenous North Americans. These are mostly plastic figures and little dolls that can often be found for sale to tourists. Having lived with the stereotypes these items depict all my life, I thought it might be funny and empowering to take them out of visual circulation and replace their images with beads, my favourite medium. Once I began actually beading the items, I discovered that the results were not really funny at all, but disturbing. In some cases I did cover the entire object, but in others, my sympathy for the little figures grew until I found I couldn’t bring myself to cover their eyes. In these works, the embarrassed figures seem to gaze out from behind a beaded modesty cover, a new plight for them that I hadn’t anticipated. – Bev Koski

Luke Parnell, Haida Nisga’a Wood Carving

These photos are ours, but thanks to Harbourfront Centre for the use of the artist’s quote.

Please read about the installation here.