Maureen K. Porter (Textile Artist)
Youth start as legitimate peripheral participants, learning embroidery at the feet of their parents. As they gain skill, they join the lifework of innovative people for whom embroidery is an art that tangibly expresses individual, family, and Indigenous aspirations for well-being, recognition, and rights. Custom embroidering huipils is integral to the life-long, life-wide, and life-deep educative process of learning to be Mayan in today’s global México. Embroidered traje makes a potent iconographic statement of Yucatec identity, reaffirming local symbols and reinterpreting treasured motifs. Visual ethnographic fieldwork informs best practices for critical museum curation that showcases dynamic communities on the move.
Part of 11-02 Decolonizing Folklore I, Monday, October 18, 9:30 am–11:00 am