Erasure

Erasure

Indigenous art pieces are often collected, sorted, and labeled in ways that improperly reflect- or even distort- Indigenous meaning. (Brushac, 2017). When material culture items are sorted strictly by type or geographic region, their tribal contexts are erased. This problematic labeling practice “[separates] people from objects, objects from communities, and communities from their stories” (Brushac, 2017). When Native women’s stories are disconnected from their art, which is not a hobby, but a necessity for survival in the post-colonialism era, their identities are masked by labels which misrepresent their culture. The curation of this item, for example, lists the artist’s name and region, but fails to indicate any tribal association or cultural context.