From Cara Krmpotich and Allyson LaForge
Tracing Material Culture Histories, is an extended piece on Birchbark items at Mount Holyoke College Art Museum written by Allyson LaForge. LaForge discusses a miniature maple sugaring basket, or mokuk, crafted by a Native woman from the Great Lakes in the first half of the nineteenth century. It explores the artifact’s history, its connection to Michilimackinac, and the broader context of Indigenous resistance, emphasizing the importance of restoring Indigenous histories and knowledge to collections.
Allyson LaForge is a PhD candidate in American Studies at Brown University. Her dissertation project, “Materializing Futurity: Networks of Native Organizing in the Northeast,” examines the role Indigenous material culture played during transnational Native Northeast movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, led by coalitions of Native leaders, activists, artists, craftspeople, and writers who worked to resist settler colonialism and ensure Indigenous futurity. Weaving together material culture histories, “Materializing Futurity” traces the stories of Passamaquoddy birchbark artist and leader Tomah Joseph, Odawa quillwork artist and leader Margaret Blackbird Boyd, and Narragansett and Wampanoag knowledge-keeper and educator Princess Red Wing. Their resurgent work sustained Indigenous homelands, sovereignty, and knowledge. Allyson’s current exhibit at Mystic Seaport Museum, “Restor(y)ing Indigenous Collections,” features the art and knowledge of artists Brittney Peauwe Wunnepog Walley (Nipmuc) and Julia Marden (Aquinnah Wampanoag). She is also a volunteer Collections Manager at the Tomaquag Museum.