Image: Nico Williams, NDN Hustle (detail), 2024–25, 11/0 Japanese glass cylinder beads on thermally-fused/braided polyethylene thread. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Paul Litherland
‘Nico Williams: Bingo’, the first major solo museum exhibition by the Anishinaabe artist Nico Williams, will be shown at Museum London in London, Ontario, from 31 October 2026 to 4 April 2027. Organised by PHI in Montréal and presented in collaboration with Museum London, the exhibition fills the Ivey Galleries on the museum’s second level and includes a new work commissioned specifically for the London presentation.
Born in 1989, Williams is a member of Aamjiwnaang First Nation and attended H.B. Beal Secondary School in London. He now lives and works in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal, completed an MFA in sculpture at Concordia University in 2021, and received the Sobey Art Award in 2024 after being longlisted for the prize in 2022.
His large-scale beadwork and sculpture start from the ordinary: VHS tapes, grocery flyers, clothing, packaging and lottery tickets are among the everyday objects and pop-culture images he reworks. According to the museum, the practice deliberately unsettles the line between art and craft and asks viewers to reconsider how value is assigned to each.
The exhibition takes the game of bingo as its organising idea, using it to consider chance, worth, exchange and community. The museum traces a historical thread from the game’s roots in Renaissance Italy to the glass-bead industry of the same period, and from there to the Venetian glass beads that settlers brought to Turtle Island, where they were taken up into long-established Indigenous beadwork traditions. Among the works shown is ‘NDN Hustle’ (2024–25), made with Japanese glass cylinder beads on fused and braided polyethylene thread.
Two related events accompany the opening months. On 5 November, during Treaty Recognition Week, Williams joins host Sara Mai Chitty for a Bingo Night at the museum, and on 15 November Janet Antone leads a hands-on workshop in brick and peyote stitch; both require registration.
