The exhibition occupied four floors, weaving together strands of Indigenous sovereignty, queerness, community, consumerism, and cultural exchange. On the first floor, the theme of land was evoked through amended needlework and sculptural works that spoke to boundaries, control, and claims over territory. In the installation Zhi-biindiged gwaya <\/em>(2022), beaded beach chairs emblazoned with the flags of Canada, Qu\u00e9bec, and the United States sat on smooth river rocks, suggesting both leisure and dispossession of land. Works on the second floor were grounded around themes of queerness and identity. In Silence No More <\/em>(2015), a set of antlers adorned with a ball gag simultaneously evoked kink, dominance, and silence. An erotic scene was set by the beaded shorts of Flamer <\/em>(2022), set atop a tiled plinth and bench that conjured a locker room or bathhouse. In Uncle <\/em>(2023), a red-and-black flannel shirt\u200a\u2014\u200aa staple of rugged Canadian masculinity\u200a\u2014\u200abecame a soft target for deconstruction. Williams queered these tropes through adornment and practical impossibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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$\"Nico$
Nico Williams
<\/strong>Uncle<\/em>, 2023, installation view, PHI, Montr\u00e9al, 2025.
Photo: Paul Litherland, courtesy of the artist &
Gochman Family Collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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In the curatorial essay for the exhibition, Daniel Fiset recounted a conversation with Williams that highlights the critical historical role of beadwork in exchange between Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island and European settlers: as the latter imported large quantities of Venetian glass beads to facilitate trade and advance their territorial ambitions, the former quickly incorporated these foreign materials into their established beading practices, adapting them in culturally meaningful ways. This dual legacy of cultural connection and colonial extraction was present throughout Bingo<\/em>. Williams recontextualized the medium, situating himself within Indigenous beadwork traditions while expanding the medium\u2019s possibilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the third floor, Williams\u2019s work entered into conversation with other Indigenous artists. A pawn-shop\u200a-\u200astyle installation, Pawn Stars <\/em>(2024\u200a\u2013<\/em>25), displayed beaded works collected by Williams, connecting his practice to a broader lineage of craft and cultural production. This room felt like both an archive and a marketplace, nodding to the commodification of Indigenous art while celebrating its enduring community presence. Works on the fourth floor were thematically grouped around the idea of games, consumerism, and adaptation. Linking daily sustenance to broader systems of commerce, beaded replicas of flyers from Giant Tiger and Provigo supermarkets hung alongside snippets from industrial logos and packaging for foodstuffs commonly used as ingredients in frybread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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$\"Nico$
Nico Williams
<\/strong>NDN Hustle<\/em>, 2024-2025, installation view, PHI, Montr\u00e9al, 2025.
Photo: Paul Litherland, courtesy of the artist &
Gochman Family Collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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$\"Nico$
Nico Williams
<\/strong>Flamer<\/em>, 2022, installation view, PHI, Montr\u00e9al, 2025.
Photo: Paul Litherland, courtesy of the artist &
Gochman Family Collection
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Displayed alongside beaded lottery tickets from 2019, Williams debuted a new series of beaded bingo cards, NDN Hustle<\/em> (2024\u200a\u2013<\/em>\u200a25). These works were replicas of bingo cards that he collected during visits to the bingo hall in Kahnawake. Like beads, bingo was imported from Europe and then adapted and amended by Indigenous communities. The modernist shapes of Williams\u2019s bingo cards were made irregular by circular forms that speckled across and defied their grid-like structures. The beaded works shimmered and gleamed, suggesting both play and strategy, randomness and control. In its layered textures and shimmering surfaces, Bingo<\/em> asserted the craft of beadwork not only as an art form but as a language\u200a\u2014\u200aone capable of articulating histories of survival, pleasure, and resistance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHI,<\/strong> Montr\u00e9al<\/br>April 25\u2013September 14, 2025<\/br>","protected":false},"author":6506,"featured_media":273067,"template":"","categories":[884],"numeros":[7754],"disciplines":[],"statuts":[],"checklist":[],"auteurs":[5629],"artistes":[6841],"thematiques":[],"type_compte-rendu":[],"class_list":["post-273091","compte-rendu","type-compte-rendu","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","numeros-116-immersion-en","auteurs-lodoe-laura-en","artistes-nico-williams-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/compte-rendu\/273091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/compte-rendu"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/compte-rendu"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6506"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273091"},{"taxonomy":"numeros","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/numeros?post=273091"},{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=273091"},{"taxonomy":"statuts","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/statuts?post=273091"},{"taxonomy":"checklist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/checklist?post=273091"},{"taxonomy":"auteurs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/auteurs?post=273091"},{"taxonomy":"artistes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artistes?post=273091"},{"taxonomy":"thematiques","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematiques?post=273091"},{"taxonomy":"type_compte-rendu","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_compte-rendu?post=273091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}