Sat, Oct 9 / 1–3:30 pm ET

https://madmuseum.org/events/my-heart-these-medicine-bundles

This two-part public program takes Mary Holiday Black’s Ceremonial Basket, Black, Red, White (c. 1998) in MAD’s permanent collection as a catalyst for collaboration. Facilitated by Diné (Navajo) artist Damian Jim and members of the Brooklyn-based Interference Archive, this event highlights the importance of collective-making processes in crafts and celebrates the unexpected results of co-creation.

My Heart Is in These Medicine Bundles will begin with a conversation on the significance of baskets in Diné culture. These objects—used for everyday tasks and ceremonial purposes—are woven through labor-intensive practices that are usually carried out in community. Bringing people together as they work, baskets also function as storytelling vehicles and life maps. Jim, who between 1995 and 1999 collaborated with more than fifteen weavers in his native Utah, will be sharing how they all came together to create hundreds of designs that won multiple awards. The conversation will be contextualized by texts from Indigenous newspapers in Interference Archive’s collection to expand on themes of preservation and tradition as generative forces.

During the second part of the event, attendees will learn how to screen print by experimenting with a series of posters designed by Jim with MAD and Interference Archive on the occasion of this convening.