Basketry: Making Human Nature - Press information
8th Feb 2011 - 22nd May 2011
Basketry: Making Human Nature, a major new exhibition which features basketry from the ancient world to the present day, opens at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, Norwich, on Tuesday 9 February and runs until 22 May 2011. It comprises world art objects and contemporary art (including a number of new works and commissions) from Western Amazonia, North America, Oceania, Africa, Japan, South-East Asia and Europe. The exhibition, which includes practical items such as a reed boat, a donkey saddle bag and a suit of armour together with art and design pieces, challenges our notions of basketry and explores ideas about the place of basketry in human culture. Amongst the contemporary art in the exhibition are works by Laura Ellen Bacon, Wilfried Popp and Lois Walpole, with new commissions from Mary Butcher and Ueno Masao. The exhibition also includes three works from the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection of world art, which is permanently displayed at the Centre. Basketry: Making Human Nature is curated by Professor Sandy Heslop, at the University of East Anglia, and is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) through the Beyond Text programme.
 Tetrahedron, 2003Joanna Gilmour |
 Kalang basketsLembudd, Kerayan Highlands, Indonesia |
 Boiler Suit - Facade of Guy’s Hospital Boiler roomThomas Heatherwick |
 Double bee skep, 1932Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service (Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse) |
 Millennium Picnic Basket, 1999Lois Walpole |
 Wicker man figureHawaiian Islands |
Amongst the works in the exhibition are stunning shields from North East Congo and the Solomon Islands, fish traps from Cameroon, Ghana and Thailand, a colourful gorget from the Society Islands, Egyptian shoes, masks from the Salampasu of Angola, baskets from across the globe and contemporary forms. The objects will demonstrate a broad range of weaving techniques including braiding, coiling and binding, and will feature designs from simple geometric herringbone twill to the most complex sculptural forms. The materials used will also encourage us to think more broadly about basketry, ranging from traditional willow and cane, to wire and recycled plastic.
Basketry is an early technology, probably preceding pottery and textile. It is likely that the forms and surface patterns of pottery vessels, such as some of the oldest surviving examples from Jomon Japan, were in part dependent on basketry prototypes. The exhibition includes objects which emulate basketry including a ceramic Kuba pot from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a Greek Hellenistic glass bowl and examples of the redeployment of basketry patterns in media such as woodcarving. The exhibition also seeks to show how basketry techniques have been widely applied, beyond the making of small containers that we might immediately think of. Amongst the large-scale basketry in the show is a reed boat from Lake Titicaca in Peru, a fishing weir from Papua New Guinea and a woven architectural wall panel from Guy’s Hospital in London by artist Thomas Heatherwick. In parts of the world the walls of houses are still woven and this was once far more widely practised, for example in Britain, with the use of wattle. The penning of animals and reclaiming land from water with hurdles have been central to the ways people have used basketry to manage their environment and make it habitable. The links between basketry and ecology are further explored in the exhibition by considering the cultivation of essential raw materials and the threat to cultural traditions where the availability of resources is in decline.
The exhibition also considers the implications of basketry for social and economic organisation. As well as trapping fish and game, basketry is used in food storage and preparation, for example, for sieving, winnowing grain, for steaming fish. These and similar processes were arguably first made possible by basketry technology, and the antiquity and importance of such developments, and their impact on social life, is a key theme. The organisation of basket and mat making, often a gendered and age-related activity, also raises questions such as who may have used them, for what and when? The uses of baskets also highlight the inventiveness of human beings. Many of the practical objects in the exhibition such as the cassava squeezer from Amazonia show how people used basketry technology to resolve a wide range of day-to-day problems and needs. Further to this, the process of weaving mats and baskets was a formative experience for the development of human concerns with number and structure. Forms that do not exist in nature, for example, the cube, are easily made as baskets and have become central to a modern conception of geometry. Basketry: Making Human Nature raises these ideas and considers whether there is link between such practical and conceptual activities across cultures.
Contemporary works in the exhibition will highlight the ways in which artists are now working with the aesthetic and structural possibilities of basket technologies. National and international artist’s commissions and new work will respond directly to the Centre’s gallery spaces and the exhibition themes. Amongst contemporary works on display will be a striking spun fibre chaise by Mathias Bengtsson, Three Stainless Steel Balls by Dali Behennah and a red, white and blue tetrahedron by Joanna Gilmour.
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Basketry - press release.pdf
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Basketry - image sheet.pdf
