Artistry@Work Series  

by Maison des Sciences de l’Homme–Université Clermont Auvergne, in collaboration with the RAI

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Tuesday, 07 January 2025,  4:00-6:00pm GMT

This is an online event. Register here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_5ATz3WvLQC6VvZmbRb90tg 

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Crafting Indigeneity in Taiwan  

Speaker: Geoffrey Gowlland, University of Geneva

Discussant: Michele Feder-Nadoff, artist & anthropologist

Abstract:

Why is it that the revitalisation of forms of art and craft has, for Indigenous peoples around the world, taken such a significance in self-presentations and political engagements? What is it about the power of things, and the power of making things, that fits so well with the agendas and needs of contemporary Indigenous peoples? In other words, what is the relationship between crafting Indigenous objects and crafting Indigenous selves? This seminar addresses some of the political, experiential, educational and spiritual dimensions of making objects using materials that connect Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples to their ancestral lands, with a particular focus on the material culture of the Paiwan people. Since the 1990s, Paiwan artists and craftspersons have been pioneers in the revitalisation of Indigenous material culture in Taiwan; the paper will present the trajectories, aspirations and philosophies of some of those creators.

Biographical note:

Geoffrey Gowlland is a Researcher in the Department of Education Sciences, University of Geneva, Switzerland. An Anthropologist by training, he is interested in processes of acquisition of material knowledge and skills, and in initiatives of revitalisation of material culture practices. He has conducted ethnographic fieldwork on craft practices including ceramics, wood carving, and dry-stone walling, in China, Taiwan and Switzerland.

Michele Avis Feder-Nadoff is an artist and cultural anthropologist. Her recent monograph, An Anthropology of Making in Santa Clara del Cobre: Presence of Absence, 2024, shares the story and analysis of her long-term apprenticeship to Maestro Jesús Pérez Ornelas (1926-2014), a master coppersmith in Santa Clara del Cobre, Michoacán, México. Her critical approach to making and aesthetics bridges the gap between socio-economic-political critiques of craft and more formalist technical-aesthetic analysis by incorporating onto-epistemology, performance and phenomenology. As an educator, she designs workshops in multi-modal research methodologies. Feder-Nadoff’s art is included in private and public collections worldwide.

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Artistry@Work is an online Seminar Series in the Anthropology of Artists & Artisans, running 2024–2025 

Maison des Sciences de l’Homme–Université Clermont Auvergne, in collaboration with the Royal Anthropological Institute

Organisers:  Dr Raphaël Blanchier & Professor Trevor Marchand

This seminar series in anthropology explores the situated practices of ‘artistry at work’ and, more broadly, the working lives and career trajectories of artists and artisans plying their trades in regions around the globe. The scope of the series also encompasses studies of occupations not conventionally categorised as “artistic” but that nevertheless foster creativity among (some) practitioners and even accommodate the development of “artist” identities. 

Find a list of all events here.

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