As part of their work to reframe and to activate the Philippine Collections at the University of Michigan with Indigenous knowledge the ReConnect/ReCollect team held a workshop with Indigenous Philippine artists in May. The visiting culture bearers were Cathy Ekid Domigyay, a Bontoc textile artist and weaver; Johnny Bangao, Jr. a Kankana-ey basket weaver; and Ammin Achaur, a tattoo artist from the Kalinga region. They were accompanied by Baguio-based illustrator Justine Amores and cultural anthropologist Dr. Analyn Salvador Amores from the University of the Philippines, Baguio.
The workshop was a family-friendly event that included demonstrations of artisans’ techniques, hands-on workshops, and the opportunity to interact with artifacts from the University of Michigan’s Museum of Anthropological Archaeology.
The event engaged scholars and local community folks with a compelling question about what happens when you take Indigenous knowledge seriously in the space of the University and in relation to objects resonant with troubling colonial histories. Participants had the chance to weave – to make objects like those in the collections – with experts from the Philippines and to watch a tattoo artist at work. They had the opportunity to experience the objects in the context of vital, living pre and post-colonial traditions.
This was the team’s third summer workshop designed to help them develop a framework and practices for culturally-responsive and historically-minded stewardship of the Philippine collections at the University of Michigan.
ReConnect/ReCollect: Reparative Connections to Philippine Collections at the University of Michigan recently completed the project phase of their two-year 2021-2023 Humanities Collaboratory grant and is now working on the dissemination piece led by co-PIs Ricky Punzalan (Associate Professor of Information, School of Information) and Deirdre de la Cruz (Associate Professor of Asian Languages and Cultures and Associate Professor of History).