Paper short abstract:

The recognition of First Nation technologies should be an area of attention museums and collectors need to show more concern. This paper explores an unusual weaving method across several countries and regions around the world in order to showcase another form of often overlooked value.

Paper long abstract:

An anthropology of art must have a flexible and malleable theoretical foundation to be useful in working with First Nation material culture traditions. Howard Morphy writes that what is needed is an anthropology that "develops explanatory frameworks that are sensitive to context and which locate events and actions historically" (2009: 22). The art historian, Hans Belting, provides a provocation of a framework with his image/body/medium theory. In part, Belting writes that it is "not unusual for an image to acquire appeal because it presents itself to us via a seductive carrier medium, perhaps one that presents technological novelty" (2011: 16). It the value of technological novelty and the importance of including it in our explanatory frameworks, that this paper addresses.

This paper explores a rarely documented weaving method across several regions around the world in order to showcase another form of often overlooked value. The recognition of First Nation technologies should be an area of attention museums and collectors need to show more concern. Relying on curators, registrars and other museum staff to also double as artisans capable of developing that body of knowledge is not always possible. Researchers and artists can play an obvious role in this. By following the weaving technique, new questions for exploration are revealed, creating new forms of value for researchers and collections as well as contributing to the further development of an anthropology of art.