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The Indigenous Present

Books and the means to make them have been a site of cultural exchange and struggle throughout the history of settler colonialism. The bookworks shown here can be seen as part of that long history. Blending traditional crafts and contemporary practices—as all art does—these books affirm the Indigenous present through family and community stories. 

ul'nigid'

Skye Tafoya
ul'nigid'
Rosendale, New York: Women's Studio Workshop, 2019

A tribute to the artist’s grandmother, Martha Reed-Bark, ul'nigid' features paper woven using a traditional basket-weaving pattern, and Cherokee syllabary text that is letterpress-printed using metal type. The Cherokee text reads “i love you kila” [the artist’s daughter, with whom she was pregnant when making the book]; “home”; “language”; “medicine”; and “i love you grandma.” (Translation from the artist’s website.)

UNC Library Catalog: https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb11141232

The Exquisite Lumbee

Ashley Minner
The Exquisite Lumbee
[Baltimore]: [Ashley Minner], 2011

Minner uses a technique inspired by the Surrealist ‘exquisite corpse’ method to embody and express the interconnectedness of the great diversity of individuals who make up the Lumbee community. "The Exquisite Lumbee book exists to demonstrate that, although we as a people run the gamut of skin colors, hair colors and hair textures, we do have a distinctive quality, character and style. We recognize each other. We are exquisite.” (Quotation from the artist’s website.)

UNC Library Catalog: https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb11165503

Taller Leñateros
The Words of Chan K'in
San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, México: Taller Leñateros, [200-?]

In The Words of Chan K’in, members of the Mayan book arts collective Taller Leñateros memorialize the words of an elder on paper made from local plant fibers. Located in Chiapas, Mexico, the group describes itself as having “published the first books written, illustrated, printed, and bound (with paper of their own manufacture) by the Mayan people in more than 400 years.” (Quotation from the collective’s website, translated by library staff.)

UNC Library Catalog: https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb4817835