THUNDER BAY — Everyone at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery is on cloud nine after earning a major honour.
They were the recipient of the Ontario Galleries’ public program award for the Anikoobijiganag: Thunder Bay Beading Symposium that ran at the gallery in February.
The award was announced in Toronto on Dec. 3.
“We all cheered when we learned that we won,” said Bob Gravelle, who is a marketing communications coordinator at the Art Gallery.
“It’s so cool to be able to share this award with the Anemki Art Collective, as well with everyone who helped us to put this on.
“We were grateful and thrilled to receive this award and the vibe around our whole office has been pretty electric.”
Anikoobijiganag was the first beading symposium of its kind at the Art Gallery. It celebrated the importance of beading practices and brought together the beading community from all over the region.
“This was really born out of our love of bringing people together and coincided with the Radical Stitch exhibition, which was curated by the Mackenzie Art Gallery,” Gravelle said.
“We really wanted to bring together the incredible beading community from around Northern Ontario and the Northwestern Ontario artist community that we serve. We also wanted to bridge that between Indigenous knowledge, fine art and high fashion.”
The three-day event – which was also supported by the Ontario Arts Council and the Government of Ontario – featured workshops, public events and talks that were led by beaders, artists and crafters from across the region.
Anemki Art Collective co-founder Jean Marshall said in a prepared statement that they were grateful to receive the award along with the Thunder Bay Art Gallery.
“Aanikoobijiganag was an amazing gathering and it took a community to make it happen,” Marshall added. “Exploring the materiality of beads led to empowering discussions and conversations. This acknowledgement is much appreciated as we work hard to create meaningful relations in our community.“
Aanikoobijiganag will be returning to the Art Gallery in October 2025.
“A lot of the feedback that we got back in February was from people wishing that it was bigger,” Gravelle said.
“We’re pretty confident that we can execute next year’s event in an even grander manner with all of the lessons that we learned earlier this year.”
