In this Gatherings Roadshow presentation, Madison Francoeur shares a small, circular piece of beadwork—an intricately crafted representation of Edmonton. Through multicoloured beads and a striking blue river cutting through the centre, Francoeur translates a city into a tactile, temporal form: a landscape held in the palm of one’s hand.
The work embodies hours of labour and attention, each bead marking a point of connection between self, land, and history. It is both a personal expression of home and a reflection on being a guest in that place—a recognition of Indigenous land and ongoing relationships of care and responsibility.
By transforming Edmonton into a physical artefact, Francoeur invites us to consider how place might be rendered through touch, texture, and time. How does the land record us, even as we attempt to record it? And what might it mean to carry a landscape—not as image or map, but as a patient act of making?
