Collection by:
kahkiyaw kikway is a body of six wearable artworks created out of home tanned moose and deer hide. Most wearable home tanned hide artworks created in the tradition from my community are customarily adorned with beadwork, quillwork, tufting, or embroidery. In eliminating the decorative aspects, my aim is to highlight the beauty of the hide itself. The pieces are equal parts decorative and utilitarian, fantastical and practical, modest and boastful, historic and futuristic. kahkiyaw kikway is a celebration of continuity in engaging with ancestral materials, techniques, skills, and technologies to create contemporary shapes, patterns, and aesthetics. This collection mixes both practical and impractical elements of dress in order to simultaneously bridge and exaggerate the distance between utility and fantasy. As a material of significance in customary garment making in many Indigenous communities, home tanned hide holds within it concepts of Indigenous labour, wealth, bodies, time, and beauty. kahkiyaw kikway is a homage to the beauty and versatility of home tanned hide.