To view photo images of works, scroll right on laptop or down on Iphone
The major touring exhibition Sovereign Stitches + Wild Weaves opens at the McCord Steward Museum (Montreal) on November 27, 2026 to March 29, 2027.
Sovereign Stitches + Wild Weaves, curated by Wanda Nanibush and Sage Paul, brings together more than 35 Indigenous artists from around the world whose work challenges the borders between contemporary art, culture, fashion, design and traditional practice. The Indigenous art, fashion and textiles on exhibition will touch on embodiment, queer storytelling, cultural beautification, adornment, storytelling, tattooing, trade, activism, and conservation.
The exhibition is a treatise on the centrality of creation to kinship and vice versa, and forefronts the notion of building ancestral futures from within Indigenous notions of time. The artworks will be organized aesthetically and thematically, in eight themes.
Ace’s new Fragments of Being series is represented in Sovereign Stitches + Wild Weaves with the inclusion of two works, Ogimaa-wiiwkwaan (Chief’s Hat) 2025 and Convergence of Dissonant Parts (2025), conveying the concept of breaking down an object into its individual components, while “being” hints at the essence or identity of the object being deconstructed and transformed into something abstract. It suggests a journey from the familiar to the unfamiliar, inviting the viewer to reconsider the relationship between parts and the whole.
Ace notes that “in this hyper-digital and cyber-age of existence, we have become increasingly disconnected from our ability to fully experience and comprehend the mnemonic qualities of the hand-made and our ability to decipher the experiential of its sensory and intellectual engagement. My focus on material and materiality is deliberate to evoke a deeper understanding of the impact of colonization on Anishinaabeg traditional knowledge and material culture to give substance to our current trend of resurgence and cultural revitalization.”
The artist gratefully acknowledges the support of Canada Council for the Arts in the creation of the Fragments of Being series.
Sovereign Stitches + Wild Weaves. McCord Stewart Museum (Montreal). 
Convergence of Dissonant Parts (2025) Velvet, Pellon©, birchbark, electronic components, glass beads, hide, and rope on paper. 125 x 94 cm. Collection of the Artist. 
Ogimaa-wiiwkwaan (Chief's Hat) (2025) Found vintage 19th century beaver-fur top hat, birchbark, electronic components, glass beads, hide, ostrich feathers, stroud material, rooster feathers, rope, porcupine quills. 91 x 35 x 40 cm. Collection of the Artist.