Paper short abstract:

This paper investigates the agency of Aboriginal artists when dealing within a global art market. While Western institutions use established categories to codify fibre objects as craft, Aboriginal artists invent new fibre objects that resist such categorisation and, therefore, challenge Western perceptions of Indigenous fibre art.

Paper long abstract:

The local and global art market with its collective of defining forces including museums, galleries, collectors and scholars have contributed to a classification and evaluation of Indigenous art objects. There is general agreement that the art market has to some extent appropriated artisan knowledge. Over the course of the last two decades this process of appropriation has however been increasingly informed and, I argue, wilfully guided by Indigenous artists themselves. They have not only utilised art market forces, but, in a feedback process, subverted and changed perceptions of Indigenous fibre art and its place in the market.

Until the mid 1990s Aboriginal fibre art was categorised by the art market as craft because the main producers were women and most of the works were functional objects including baskets, bags, fish-traps and mats or ceremonial regalia.

By providing case studies from central Arnhem Land and the Western Desert this paper will exemplify how some Aboriginal artists have challenged preconceived Western categorisations and perceptions of fibre art. Indigenous fibre artist have invented a new movement in Aboriginal art - that of fibre sculpture. Most fibre sculptures have not existed in this form before and can not be categorised as functional objects. The artists actively engage with sculpture production that specifically targets the fine art market. They often aim at transcending Western categorisations and educating cross-cultural audiences about Indigenous values.