To visit Fort Lewis College’s Center of Southwest Studies gallery is to be surrounded by dozens of intricate, brightly colored textiles woven by Indigenous artists – part of the “From the Fringes: Diné Textiles that Disrupt” exhibit.
The exhibit – which presents Indigenous narratives told through the art of weaving – was transformed July 1 into a research lab. The goal was to peer into the textiles’ molecular makeup, and look for the presence of something sinister: harmful chemicals used decades ago to preserve the tapestries.
The July 1 lab brought together an unlikely cast of characters, including artists, the exhibit curator, college faculty, representatives from the Southern Ute Cultural Center and scientists from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
The Met scientists came to share their expertise in X-ray fluorescence, a noninvasive technology that reveals the chemicals present in works of art.
In this case, participants were looking for the presence of arsenic, lead and chromium in the textiles. It was common decades ago for curators to use pesticides containing such chemicals to preserve the pieces, not realizing the products posed health risks, said Amy Cao, collection manager at the Center of Southwest Studies.
“A lot of times, people think we wear gloves because it’s protecting the items from us. But really, they (the gloves) protect us from the unknowns on the items,” she said.
The exhibit was curated by Venancio Aragón, a Farmington-based artist who specializes in traditional Diné weaving.
Aragón said using X-ray fluorescence – or XRF – to determine which textiles are safe to handle has also raised new questions about what traditional practices or materials have been lost to industrialization and colonization.
Not all the textiles have those harmful chemicals, those are the ones they are particularly interested in, Aragón said. Once the center knows which textiles are chemical-free, it could give contemporary weavers a chance to study and revive lost practices, he said.
Aragón said he hopes to learn more about the methods, materials and knowledge of his ancestors that have been lost – insights that could come from studying these textiles up close.
“We may be able to look forward and revive some of those practices, or reintroduce them – or just learn from them,” he said.
Elena Carrara, associate curator with the Met’s Department of Scientific Research, said the effort stems from the Met’s sense of responsibility to help smaller museums like the Center for Southwest Studies add scientific context to their collections. The Met then leaves the cultural interpretation to the communities that made or house the art.
“The Met has to set an example,” she said. “As an institution, we want to be a resource.”
The exhibition highlights rare, understudied or overshadowed areas of Navajo weaving that usually aren’t featured, Aragón said.
“It’s all about the celebration of the aesthetic oddities of Navajo weaving,” he said.
The exhibit presents weavings by Aragón, his mother and his students from Diné College, alongside textiles from the Durango Collection – a nationally renowned assortment of textiles representing centuries of Southwest artistry by Diné, Pueblo, Hispanic and Latinx weavers.
The textiles represent different weaving eras, styles and expressions of the weavers’ identities and communities, Cao said.
“They’re a great way to show cultural continuity and survival of not only art forms but the people who made them,” she said.
The collection spans more than 800 years of Southwest weaving, from pre-contact to contemporary textiles, Cao wrote in an email to The Durango Herald. The Navajo/Diné pieces analyzed ranged from about 1750 to 1930, with most from the mid-1800s, she said.
Aragón said his exhibit seeks to challenge the dominant interpretation of U.S. history. Often centering around the European-American narrative dating to the pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, it excludes both the violent colonization of the continent and thousands of years of Indigenous history before the arrival of Europeans, he said.
The exhibit celebrates Indigenous perspectives and strives to tell a more complete and accurate account of American history, he said.
Aragón wants the exhibit to “decolonize our conception” of Indigenous nations and celebrate them.
“We have such an interesting and variable history of our first peoples, and that’s really American history,” he said.
sedmondson@durangoherald.com
