CARRIERS OF CULTURE: LIVING NATIVE BASKET TRADITIONS

Michigan State University Museum and the Smithsonian Institution’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, in partnership with Native American basketmakers organizations, are developing Carriers of Culture: Living Native Basket Traditions, a multi-faceted project that will examine the creative vitality and diversity of Native basketry as not only a significant component of the artistic expressive heritage of the United States and Canada, but also as key cultural and artistic forms within distinct tribal groups and First Nations.

The project focuses on contemporary Native basketry traditions that exist in Hawaii and North America at the beginning of the twenty-first century and examines the ways in which baskets and their makers are--literally and symbolically--“carriers of culture.”

The multi-faceted project has two primary components: a major exhibition that will tour national venues and a special program at the 2006 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

About The Exhibition: 

The exhibit will feature 250-300 baskets representing the following themes: “Artistic and Functional Diversity,” “Learning Basketry,” “Contemporary Issues in Basketmaking,” “Marketing Baskets,” and “Masters of Tradition.”  The latter section will include the work of those weavers who have been recipients of the prestigious National Endowment for the Arts’ National Heritage Fellowship.

Primary emphasis will be on contemporary objects although selected historical examples will be used to show continuity of tradition, sources of inspiration, etc.  The objects selected will provide as much breadth of representation as possible of basket organizations, tribes, techniques, traditions, and forms. 

The anticipated 2500 square-foot exhibit, scheduled to open in late 2006 or early 2007 at the Michigan State University Museum, is being designed with an extensive use of basket materials and motifs in the design itself; first person Native voice; and contextual photographs of basketmaking and use.  It will include media and interactive elements such as videos of basketmaking, audio excerpts of interviews with artists, and opportunities to touch materials and try basic weaving techniques.

The exhibition will tour to a minimum of six venues in North America; expressions of interest have already been received by a number of venues, including those who hosted To Honor and Comfort: Native Quilting Traditions.  A smaller version of the exhibition will be developed and circulated for smaller venues, particularly tribal museums.  Again, interest in the exhibit has already been expressed by several potential venues.

About The Festival:

In 2006, at the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival, held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., a Carriers of Culture: Living Native Basket Traditions program component will feature over 100 basketmakers and include demonstrations, performances, narrative sessions, and sales opportunities for Native artists and organizations. 

About Other Project Components:

Additional components anticipated are an on-line virtual version of the exhibit; a series of public programs (including basketry demonstrations) at exhibit venues; curriculum materials; a publication containing essays describing and analyzing various aspects of living Native basket traditions; and a web-based, virtual resource center on Native weaving.

 Project History:

In the late 1990s, Kurt Dewhurst and Marsha MacDowell of the Michigan State University Museum (MSUM) developed and circulated, in partnership with the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, the exhibition To Honor and Comfort: Native Quilting Traditions.  A smaller version of the exhibition, solely produced by the MSU Museum, is still circulating to tribal museums and centers.  Both exhibitions have been well received, particularly within Native communities.

Meanwhile, during the 1990s a number of Native basketmakers associations began forming with the goal of engaging more individuals in the acquisition of the skills and knowledge critical to the making of this traditional art as well as stimulating more public awareness of the value of this art.  When suggestions were made by a number of individuals to apply the To Honor and Comfort exhibition development model to contemporary Native basket traditions, the MSUM convened a series of planning meetings of stakeholders (including many weavers and community-based users of the art) to ascertain interest in developing an exhibition.  At the very first meeting, held at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, the assembled stakeholders enthusiastically endorsed the project, gave the project its name, and identified a roster of exhibit goals.  

Planning meetings of different sets of stakeholders were subsequently held over a period of four years.  In addition to weavers, participants in these meetings included curators of basketry exhibits at tribal museums; state and regional folk arts coordinators and other scholars who have conducted research on specific contemporary basket traditions; and directors and board members of the state, tribal, and regional basket organizations.  The various discussions held at these various meetings have resulted in a clearly identified roster of issues critical to the preservation and revitalization of Native basket traditions and a working outline for the exhibition and festival.  The consultation sessions also resulted in this working model for developing an exhibition that insures that the process and the products will provide meaningful mechanisms for input and decision making by stakeholders.

Funders to Date:

Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest, National Endowment for the Arts, Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs, Michigan State University All-University Research Initiative Grant, Michigan State University Office of Vice-President for Research and Graduate Studies, and on-going in-kind support by Michigan State University Museum.

Additional support has been provided by Institute of American Indian Arts Museum, Red Earth, Inc., W. K. Kellogg Foundation, Ka Ulu Lauhala O Kona, Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe, National Endowment for the Arts Technical Assistance Grant Program, and the Pew Charitable Trust Gatherings and Conferences Program administered by the Fund for Folk Culture.

For planning meetings, additional support was provided by, among others, the following: Smithsonian Institution’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Onaway Trust, Garden Island Resource Conservation & Development, Inc. (Kauai), Heard Museum, and Institute of American Indian Art Museum.