As We Have Always Done: Fascination with Fiber as a Path to Dismantle Disciplinary Separateness- A Return to Relatedness
Deloria & Wildcat (2001) assert that western models of education separate and categorize knowledge, generates an explicit sense of separateness. Recent efforts of the Indigenous Liberal Studies (ILS) and Studio Arts faculty at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) evolved into the collaborative development of a cross-listed studio course in Papermaking, bringing about a return to relatedness. Curriculum that incorporates subject matter from multiple disciplines has expanded course offerings in both degree programs, strengthened interdepartmental relationships, and increased student interest in ILS academics by illuminating the history of Indigenous mark making and its connection to contemporary papermaking.
Through the papermaking curriculum, faculty show students that a line of inquiry can stem from or move back and forth between academics and the studio. Studying the history of Indigenous mark making with various materials and papermaking in Indigenous communities, students are encouraged to create their own marks, watermarks, and writings on paper made themselves utilizing local native organic materials foraged in collaboration with IAIA Land Grant Garden. Papers are also made with culturally relevant or important materials of the student’s choice further strengthening creative expression. Encouraging student voice through the agency of cultural education in harmony with the synthesis of materials from their own act of creation, is an assertion sovereignty. As artists, learning papermaking provides another avenue of self-expression that encourages conscious decision making in every step of creation both in and out of the studio. For academics, writing on paper of their own making brings scholarship to a new level of creativity.
