Traditional Ecological Knowledge in the Arts: A Workshop Series

Traditional Ecological Knowledge in the Arts: A Workshop Series

Join us for a special Finger Weaving Workshop with Aquinnah Wampanoag artist Elizabeth James-Perry on March 4th at 5:30 PM at the HUNAP Conference Room (14 Story St, 4th Floor).

As part of Harvard College Women’s Week, this hands-on event celebrates Indigenous art, culture, and community. Learn the traditional practice of finger weaving, explore the deep connections between art and the land, and engage with one of New England’s most accomplished Native artists.

All are welcome—don’t miss this unique opportunity to connect and create!

About the artist:

Elizabeth James-Perry is enrolled with the Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe, and is a Native whaling descendant. She has a dual background in Marine Science and Northeastern Native Art. Highly regarded within her community and beyond for her woven wampum, twined basketry, quillwork and sashes, she is considered one of the most accomplished Native artists working in New England today. As a 2023 NEA Heritage award recipient, James-Perry engages with Northeastern Woodlands Native cultural expressions, primarily in sculptural forms of wampum shell-carving and bead-making with its connection to identity and sovereignty, maritime traditions and restorative Native gardening. She is a culture bearer, lecturer, educator and plant walk leader in addition to textile, wampum and quill work.

Her recording about King Philips Sash for Wampanoag Voices Beyond 2020 at the Harvard Peabody Museum, Cambridge links a Native powderhorn strap with the story of colonization. She designed authentic wardrobe for The Great Gatsby and Moby Dick at Harvard A.R.T., and centered tribal homelands as B-roll Producer for As Nutayunean, a Wampanoag film. James-Perry was a Native Advisor for the New England Foundation of the Arts Native Symposium 2020, the TEK collaborator for Seals and Society and consultant for the Smithsonian Institute’s  Shifting Boundaries that questions assumptions embodied in historic landscape paintings. 

Host or Publisher Harvard University Native American Program