The Material Culture of Basketry

Practice, Skill and Embodied Knowledge

Stephanie Bunn, Victoria Mitchell (Herausgeber)

Buch | Softcover

312 Seiten

2023
Bloomsbury Visual Arts (Verlag)
978-1-350-35990-1 (ISBN)

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This book celebrates basketry as a culturally significant skilled practice and as a theoretically rich discipline which has much to offer contemporary society. While sometimes understudied and underappreciated, it has much in common with mathematics and engineering, art, craft and design, and can also act as a socially beneficial source of skill and care.

Contributors show how local knowledge of materials, plants and place are central to the craft. Case studies include the skill in weaverbird nest building (challenging how we perceive learning in craft and nature), an engineer’s perspective on twining Peruvian grass bridges, and the local knowledge embodied in Pacific plaited patterns and knots. Photo-essays explore materials and techniques from the point of view of artists, anthropologists and mathematicians, revealing how the structure and skill in basketwork illustrate a significant form of textile technology. Thus, the book demonstrates that the textures, patterns and geometric forms that emerge through basketwork reflect an embodied knowledge which expresses mathematical and engineering comprehension.

The therapeutic value of the craft is recognised through a selection of case studies which consider basketry as a healing process for patients with brain injury, mental health problems, and as a memory aid for people living with dementia. This reclaims basketry’s significant role in occupational therapy as an agent of recovery and well–being. Basketry's inherently sustainable nature is also considered, demonstrating the continuation of basketry in spite of handwork’s general decline and profiling new and recycled materials. Above all, the book envisages basketry as an intellectually rewarding means of knowing. It presents the craft as embodying care for skilled making and for the social and natural environments in which it flourishes.

Stephanie Bunn is Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews, UK. She conducts research through practice into Central Asian felt textiles and basketry worldwide, and collected and co-curated the first ever British Museum exhibition of Kyrgyz felt textiles. She is the author of Nomadic Felts (2010) and editor of Anthropology and Beauty (2020). Victoria Mitchell is Research Fellow at Norwich University of the Arts, UK, where she was previously Senior Lecturer in Contextual Studies and Course Leader for MA Textile Culture. She works with the theory, practice and history of textiles and basketry, with a particular interest in relationships between materials, making, metaphor and meaning.

Acknowledgements
List of Contributors
List of Illustrations

Introduction, Stephanie Bunn

PART ONE: Materials and Processes: from plant to basket and beyond
Introduction, Victoria Mitchell
1. Bird-nest Building, Susan D. Healy and Maria Cristina Tello-Ramos
2. Binding Place, Caroline Dear
3. Archaeological Basketry and Cultural Identity in Ancient Egypt, Willeke Wendrich
4. The Sustainability of English Traditional Willow Basket-making, Mary Butcher
5. Drawing Out a Tune: from head to hand, Tim Johnson
6. Material Values, Lois Walpole

PART TWO: Basketry as Maths, Pattern and Engineering: growth, form and structure
Introduction, Stephanie Bunn
7. On the Continuities Between Craft and Mathematical Practices, Ricardo Nemirovsky
8. Friction: an engineer’s perspective on weaving grass rope bridges, Ian Ewart
9. Basketry and Maths: some thoughts and practical exercises, Geraldine Jones
10. Counting, Number, Loops and Lines, Mary Crabb
11. Extracts from 'Imagining the Body Politic: the knot in the Pacific imagination', Susanne Küchler
12. Secret Strings, Sabine Hyland and William Hyland
13. Exploring Mathematical and Craft Literacies: learning to read and learning to make patterned baskets in Vanuatu, Lucie Hazelgrove-Planel

PART THREE: Gathering Knowledge: basketry as a medium of memory, belonging and evocation
Introduction, Victoria Mitchell
14. Snare and Enfold, Caroline Dear
15. Irish Woven Communities: a glimpse into the Irish indigenous basketry tradition, Joe Hogan
16. Straw Ropes and Wattle Walls: aspects of the material culture of basketry in Atlantic Scotland, Hugh Cheape
17. The Primordial Basket, John Mack
18. Woven Communities: from handwork to heritage in Scottish vernacular basketry, Stephanie Bunn
19. Making baskets, making exhibitions: indigenous Australian baskets at the British Museum, Lissant Bolton

PART FOUR: Basketry: memory, healing, and recovery
Introduction, Stephanie Bunn
20. Basketry as Therapeutic Activity, Florence Cannavacciuolo
21. The Hand Memory Work of An Lanntair in the Outer Hebrides, Jon Macleod
22. Hand Memories in Net-making and Basketry with People with Dementia, Told Through Life-moment Stories and Associated Images, Paula Brown
23. Meeting Angus MacPhee, the Weaver of Grass. Interview with Joyce Laing, 2016, Stephanie Bunn
24. Making Grass Replicas Inspired by the Work of Angus MacPhee, Joanne B. Kaar
25. The Legacy of World War 1 for Basket-making, Hilary Burns
26. Extracts from an Interview with Scholar and Occupational Therapist Dr Catherine Paterson, MBE. Taken from a Collaborative Film made with the University of Hertfordshire and Woven Communities Project, University of St Andrews, Stephanie Bunn
27. Basket-making as an Activity to Enhance Brain Injury Neurorehabilitation, Tim Palmer

PART FIVE: Renewal and Realignment: the embodied knowledge of basketry
Introduction, Victoria Mitchell
28. Rush to Design, Felicity Irons
29. Nearly Lost: learning knots, knowing knots, loving knots and passing it on, Des Pawson
30. Renewing a Dying Craft: the Serfenta Association of Poland, Paulina Adamska
31. The Cultural Wastepaper Basket, Ian Tait
32. Braiding and Dancing: rhythmic interlacing and patterns of interaction, Victoria Mitchell
33. Weaving Together: human robot relations of basketry and knitting, Cathrine Hasse and Pat Treusch

Afterword: To Basket the World, Tim Ingold

Glossary of Terms
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	11.05.2023
Zusatzinfo	143 colour illus
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	189 x 246 mm
Themenwelt	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Design / Innenarchitektur / Mode
	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Freizeit / Hobby ► Kreatives Gestalten
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie ► Volkskunde
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
ISBN-10	1-350-35990-4 / 1350359904
ISBN-13	978-1-350-35990-1 / 9781350359901
Zustand	Neuware