Art and Place: Pacific Northwest Native Weaving and Geographies

Using art and geography as “common ground”, this program will incorporate cross-cultural learning to explore relationships of Pacific Northwest Native peoples to place. The unique status of Native nations is based on strong connections to place and territory. These connections will be expressed artistically and geographically through Native wool weaving and cartography (mapmaking), particularly in Coast Salish territory along the Salish Sea in Washington and British Columbia.

In fall quarter, students will be introduced to historical geographies and worldviews of Pacific Northwest Native nations, and visual literacy skills in wool weaving and cartography. They will gain a basic understanding of Coast Salish art techniques, tribal sovereignty and treaty rights, traditional land use, environmental justice, sacred site protection, climate resilience, and ecological and cultural regeneration.

Through field trips to museums and tribal communities, students will engage directly with integrating Indigenous art and place. Fall field trips include day visits to the Nisqually Tribe, Burke Museum, and a three-day Olympic Peninsula visit to the Quinault, Quileute, and Makah nations. (Juniors and seniors will develop a two-credit project on these experiences.)

The fall class project will collaborate with the Coast Salish Wool Weaving Center and its Burke Museum exhibit "Woven in Wool: Resilience in Coast Salish Weaving." Students will develop educational podcasts with interviews of the exhibit artists. Student teams will be trained in the Reaper application to develop and publish the 10-minute podcasts on the Center’s website.

In winter quarter, while continuing to integrate art and place, students will develop their own applied individual projects in wool weaving or cartography, inspired by the Burke exhibit and displayed on the Center’s website. Students weaving wool will be trained on Coast Salish looms, and students producing maps will be trained in Adobe Illustrator. Winter field trips will be to the Squaxin Island and Skokomish tribes.

In spring quarter, students will work with one faculty on community-based projects in collaboration with local tribes. Students can be in-program interns, volunteers, or researchers for tribal programs such as canoe journey preparation, school curriculum, decolonizing place names, and community gardens.

Students will use critical thinking skills in interpreting readings, images, films, lectures, workshops, and writing assignments. They will discover differences and potential meeting points between Native and Western cultural systems, and among diverse Tribes and First Nations. Students will develop greater awareness of Indigenous cultures, but also of aspects of culture determined and protected by Native peoples themselves.

This program is coordinated with Greener Foundations for first-year students in fall quarter. Greener Foundations is Evergreen’s in-person introductory student success course, which provides first-year students with the skills and knowledge they need to thrive at Evergreen. Students expected to take Greener Foundations in fall should use CRN 10004 to register for a 2-credit Greener Foundations course in addition to this program for 14-credits. When using this CRN students will take additional steps to complete their registration, more information can be found at the Greener Foundations Registration Help Wiki.

First-year students who are not expected to take Greener Foundations or have been granted an exemption should use CRN 10003 to register for this program for 14 credits, or CRN 10338 to register for this program for 16 credits. Find more details about who isn't expected to take Greener Foundations on the Greener Foundations website.

Anticipated Fall Credit Equivalencies:

3 - Native American and Indigenous Studies: Pacific Northwest Native History and Cultures

3 - Visual Art Studies: Pacific Northwest Indigenous Wool Weaving

3 - Geography: Indigenous Geographies and Environmental Justice

5 - Coast Salish Wool Weaving Podcast Project: Topic

2 - Research Project (for 16-credit students)

Anticipated Winter Credit Equivalencies:

3 - Native American and Indigenous Studies: Tribal Cultural Regeneration

3 - Visual Art Studies: Indigenous Wool Weaving Techniques

3 - Geography: Map Interpretation and Indigenous Cartographies

7 - Coast Salish Wool Weaving Project:   or Mapping Project:

Anticipated Spring Credit Equivalencies:

4 - Native American and Indigenous Studies: Tribal Sovereign Powers

4 - Geography: Indigenous Territory and Community

8 - Internship: Topic