Revisiting Ace’s Digital wiigwaas-mkak (2017-2019) to be included in upcoming June 2026 Love Medicine exhibition curated by Dr. Michelle McGeough at the MacKenzie Art Gallery (Regina, Saskatchewan).

Birchbark baskets incorporating porcupine quillwork are distinctive material culture vessels of the Anishinaabeg of the Great Lakes. These birchbark vessels are often embellished with complex geometric, figurative or floral motifs assembled with dyed and natural porcupine quills and trimmed with sweetgrass. In Digital wiigwaas-mkak (2017-2019), Ace references these traditional vessels, but intentionally disrupts them through the integration of his signature electronic component work.

In a unique twist, Ace deliberately juxtaposes porcupine quillwork with strips of colour-coated telecommunication wire simulating naturally sourced porcupine quills along the rim of the basket’s lid. Sweetgrass trim that would normally embellish the birchbark basket is also disrupted and supplemented by the twisted coated telecommunication wire that is segmented by short intervals of copper wire. Both sweetgrass and copper are sacred medicines of the Anishinaabeg. Ace’s contemporary approach to materiality is defined by his distinctive integration of coated telecommunication wire as quillwork and braided sweetgrass. It is this new signature refinement in Ace’s work that further enriches his unique toolbox of contemporary source materials consisting of capacitors, resistors and light emitting diodes.

For more information on the development of the Love Medicine exhibition see Museum Queeries.

Michelle McGeough is a Métis scholar and artist. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Concordia University. Prior to this position, she taught at the University of British Columbia. Dr. McGeough received her PhD in Indigenous art histories from the University of New Mexico. Her research interests have focused on the indigenous two-spirit identity. Presently she is working on a manuscript that examines Indigenous understandings of gender fluidity and the impact these notions have on artistic production. Other areas of her research include the application of Indigenous research methodologies and the incorporation of these ways of knowing into the development of curriculum and the curation of contemporary and historic Indigenous art.