Justine Woods | I love you as much as all the beads in the universe: a garment-based inquiry into re-stitching alternative worlds of love. 2021
Top: “We carry our homeland(s) close to our heart. (front view)”; Middle: “We carry our homeland(s) close to our heart. (trout filleting detail)”; Bottom: “Our bodies our stitched with 193 years of diasporic love (back detail of beaded Drummond island.)”
love you as much as all the beads in the universe: a garment-based inquiry into re-stitching alternative worlds of love “engages with a praxis of decolonial love through garment construction and beadwork as a practice-based method of inquiry. My research centres decolonial love as methodology with the expressed purpose to physically and conceptually re-stitch alternative worlds that are grounded in ethical practices and based on respect, empathy, reciprocity, consent and love. Engaging in decolonial love as praxis, the artistic production of my MDes thesis re-frames pattern drafting, garment construction and stitching methods within decolonial and relationship-based contexts. This MDes thesis prioritizes, and foregrounds, all of the relationships that make up my identity as an Aabitaawikwe of Penetanguishene, Ontario and centres these relationships as praxis towards building alternative worlds of love that honour, celebrate and mobilize Indigenous internationalism, intercultural solidarity, co-resistance and liberation.”
Justine’s research and design practice centres Indigenous fashion technologies and garment-making as practice-based methods of inquiry toward re-stitching alternative worlds that prioritize Indigenous resurgence and liberation. Her work foregrounds all of the relationships that make up her identity as a Penetanguishene Aabitaawikwe; an identity she has inherited from her family and her Aabitaawizininiwag Ancestors.