How do you use your medicine?

Accès

À propos

Here you will find a giant glow-in-the-dark Métis floral beaded tobacco bag, also known as a medicine bag or medicine pouch. With tobacco as an important mode of economic trade, relationship, ceremony, and nation-building along the Red River, this artpiece asks, How do you use your medicine?

With community members as collaborators, Claire will facilitate active participation in stringing glow-in-the-dark beads onto the tobacco bag with the public. As the evening continues, the artpiece will slowly gain hundreds of beads. While Nuit Blanche tends to be a high-sensory experience, this work is designed to be contemplative and for those who may enjoy a lower sensory experience.

Organisateur

Claire Johnston

Claire Johnston is a Red River Métis and settler visual artist based in Winnipeg/Treaty 1 Territory. As a Two-Spirit Piitoshi-iteeyihtam (one who thinks differently), Claire engages in creating slow meticulous floral beadwork that responds relationally to the past and present.

Claire is an artist and team member with the Re*Storying Autism project (Queen's University), which works to combat Western, colonial, capitalist, and biomedical understandings of Autism through Autistic storytelling and narratives that affirm difference as desirable and needed.

As part of Canada’s official entry to the 2025 Venice Biennale, Claire was selected as a fellow to engage in research of Venetian seed beads and their connection to Métis beadworkers past and present. Their artwork has been acquired by permanent collections at the University of Manitoba (2024) and has exhibited at Urban Shaman (Winnipeg 25’),

Rosemary Gallery (Winnipeg 24’), Tangled Arts (Toronto 22’, 24’), Festival du Voyageur (Winnipeg 24’), Venice Biennale of Architecture (Venice 23’) and The Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art (Vancouver 22’). Claire is a Sundancer, a step-parent, an auntie, and an MMF citizen with membership with the Two-Spirit Michif Local.