The Lake Nipissing Beading Project is a 5 meter beaded reimagining of Lake Nipissing along with its tributaries and waterways using 444 individually beaded pieces
This community collaborative project is meant to bring folks from Nipissing and Dokis communities together through a shared project, as well as other Turtle Island individuals and communities to bead a portion of the lake and its surrounding waterways. We bead to show respect and acknowledge the importance of this waterway to those across this continent, we are all connected and the water shows us this.
The lake and surrounding waterways were re-imagined using satellite and aerial photographic imagery to form the base map of Lake Nipissing.
The image was gridded into sections that formed the ‘pattern’ for the art installation. By using remote sensing imagery we are inherently ‘taking back’ the imagery produced by the colonial state as a practice of decolonizing a tool that has historically been used to colonize, take land, and push Indigenous communities to less desirable areas. This project is in support of Indigenous sovereignty, reclamation, and decolonizing practices.