Aux confluents de l’Akiawenhrahk
2026
« With this work, I wanted to represent the alliance through its political, diplomatic and relational dimensions. The rows of wampum beads on each side remind us of the role of these objects in historical treatises, also while underlining duality, a cultural principle present throughout my artistic practice.
An alliance can only exist through the relationship between two beings, two forces, two wills who truly wish to meet one another. The purple background of the image references the color associated with wampum necklaces. In the center, two holding hands represent mutual understanding and trust, linked by a red thread, symbolizing love and engagement.
In my artistic practice, the notion of duality occupies a central place. I pull inspiration from wendat culture, also while adapting it to my own personality and to my own path. The concept of duality is very present in wendat language and culture. It ____ ways to understand the world, the relationships and the balance between the forces surrounding us. This vision resonates deeply with how I perceive reality.
In fact, I believe that when we take the time to carefully look at the world around us, everything is duality : my identity, québécoise and wendat at the same time, chaos and balance, light and shadow, feminine and masculine, to name a few. These oppositions are not contradictions, but more so complimentary forces, coexisting and answering one another.
It is this tension, this moving balance between two poles, that I seek to represent through my artistic work. Duality then becomes a visual and symbolic language which allows me to express both my cultural roots and my singular identity at once.
I wanted to work with Véronique because she embodies, for me, the concept of alliance. She is a young, committed wendat woman taking action for her community and a talented artist with who I share working in digital visual arts.
We often speak about alliances between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, but way less about those to be created between members of a same Nation, sometimes divided, particularly by the “on-reserve” and “off-reserve” debate. Véronique and I are reflections of these two realities and I believe it is essential to create more ties between. In her own way, without noticing, she is deconstructing the stereotype that Wendat living off a reserve are disconnected from their culture.
– Sabryna Godbout
This work emerges in dialogue with Sabryna’s and highlights the necessary efforts for an alliance. It takes some elements she has created, but also deconstructs them to suggest a more personal response, tied to a different way of living and of understanding the alliance. An alliance is a continual process requiring patience, willingness and effort.
The beading is left uncompleted on purpose. It is being created, with visible signs of the progress being made. The hands are at work, engaged in something slow, but also imperfect. There is no true beginning or end in the image of this process which demands to come back, to undo, to learn and to restart differently.
The rows of wampum stay intact. __________________________________________________. This stays within us. The work also evokes a process of cultural reconnection and a responsibility to work bead by bead, in relation with teachings, knowledge and the people around us. The hands translate this simultaneously individual and collective work : continuing a piece already started by others, also while finding our own way of moving forward, always in relation to others. The ash wood basket full of beads opens towards the future. It holds the idea of continuity, of passing on and of what remains to be built.
I wanted to work with Sabryna because she embodies, for me, a form of essential openness. She has the ability to create spaces of connection, but also of anchoring and of accountability towards our wendat identity and Nation. She is committed, community-wise as much as culturally-wise, and is for me a source of inspiration with her way of taking action, with a soft force. Her approach is based on relation and on a vision of the alliance that is lived concretely.
This collaboration is not only artistic, it is also relational. It reflects our friendship, but also our link to our community. We are in constant exchange, with a willingness to learn, to question, and to make a path together towards being good individuals, loyal to the values which inhabit us in our different roles.
– Véronique Picard