Resurfacing Indigenous History Through Navajo Textiles
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When the curator Hadley Jensen discovered a collection of Navajo weavings at New York’s American Museum of Natural History that had not been seen since 1910, she called on the fifth-generation Navajo, or Diné (as many Navajo people refer to themselves), weavers Lynda Teller Pete and Barbara Teller Ornelas. Jensen wanted to create an exhibition around these textiles, and she looked to the sisters for programming guidance, artwork interpretation and educational input throughout the process. These textiles, Pete says, reflect “a time suppressed by scholastic interventions,” when Indigenous people were enslaved in the United States, their land overtaken and weaving styles replaced over time by colonialist patterns. Pete experienced cultural erasure firsthand when, in 1964, she was taken from her family home at age six to attend a boarding school in New Mexico as part of a federal program in which Indigenous students were forced to renounce their culture and often were subjected to violence. Pete and Ornelas remain committed as educators to “connecting lost linkages” for Navajo youth while raising awareness around Indigenous history — and that’s exactly what they’re doing in partnership with Jensen for “Shaped by the Loom,” an exhibit that will open Feb. 17 at the Bard Graduate Center in New York City. Featuring contemporary works in conversation with weavings from 1850 to 1910, “Shaped by the Loom” will emphasize the experience and ingenuity of Navajo weavers then and now. Navajo tapestry weavings will be accompanied by a soundscape by Diné composer and pianist Connor Chee, while wall-size photographs of the Navajo Nation by Raphael Begay will lead visitors to a second-floor exhibition featuring preserved weaving materials like juniper dye, sumac roots, and unwashed wool. The exhibit will also feature a K-through-12 educators’ guide. “We need people to be curious about the Navajo people,” Pete says. “We’re still here, by the grace of our ancestors, and we want the American public to learn our history too.” “Shaped by the Loom” will be on view from Feb. 17 to July 9, bgc.bard.edu.