Canada – Northern Women Arts Collaborative

THE FABRIC OF OUR LAND Salish Weaving Exhibit – Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia

Salish weavers would sometimes unravel the colonists commercial wool products for their own work – adding in duck feathers, down skins, or woolly dog to improve the properties and quality.

Cowichan Knitting: History and Continuity

In this post I will focus on the a bit more on the background history of the Cowichan knitters and their techniques and how contemporary artists are responding to this history and honouring it.

The Cowichan Women’s traditional sweaters, issues of intellectual property and cultural appropriation.

A flurry of media reports concerning the Cowichan Tribe’s claim that their famous sweater designs were being used illegally by the Hudson’s Bay Company for the 2010 Olympics held in Vancouver, BC Canada raised important issues around intellectual property and cultural appropriation. The outcome of the issue highlights the limits of legal, artistic and economic protection for creators of cultural products in this age of globalization.