From the Fringes: Diné Textiles that Disrupt, guest curated by Venancio Aragón, featured historic and contemporary Diné textiles that challenged conventional approaches to the study and interpretation of Diné weaving traditions.
The Center of Southwest Studies cares for an extensive textile collection, including the nationally renowned The Durango Collection®, which represents nearly 1,000 years of weaving traditions in the Southwest. Historically, much of the academic framework for documenting and interpreting Diné textiles was developed by Western ethnographers, anthropologists, and art historians. These approaches often emphasized regional typologies based on design, color, and geometric elements while placing less emphasis on the knowledge, creativity, and lived experiences of Diné weavers themselves.
The exhibition presented a selection of historic textiles from the Center's collections alongside contemporary weavings by Venancio Aragón, his mother Irveta Aragón, and students from Diné College's Navajo Cultural Arts Program. Together, these works highlighted technical and aesthetic innovations that challenged established typological classifications while emphasizing experimentation, artistic innovation, and the cultural, personal, and intergenerational significance of weaving within Diné communities.
The exhibition also included loans from the collections of Dr. and Mrs. Ari and Lea Plosker, Claire and Aron Weinkauf, and Annie Vought.
This exhibition is supported by a Folk and Traditional Arts Project Grant from Colorado Creative Industries.
About the Guest Curator: Venancio Aragón
Venancio Aragón, a citizen of the Navajo Nation, is an experimental textile weaver whose work combines ancient techniques with vibrant polychromatic designs, that has come to be known as an “Expanded Rainbow Aesthetic.” Aragón learned to weave from his mother, Irveta, at the age of ten and has developed a creative practice focused on reviving rare and lesser-known techniques including twills, two-faced, shaped weavings, tufting, and hybrids.
Fusing his cultural background with the knowledge he gained as he earned degrees in Cultural Anthropology (University of New Mexico) and Native American & Indigenous Studies (Fort Lewis College), Aragón views Navajo weaving as a way to preserve Diné culture and identity by promoting the continuation and practice of his ancestor's legacy. Aragón’s textiles have been featured in major publications and exhibited widely, including at the Heard Museum (Phoenix, AZ), Museum of Fine Arts (St. Petersburg, FL), Tempe Center for the Arts (Tempe, AZ), and The Ah Haa School for the Art’s Daniel Tucker Gallery (Telluride, CO). Aragon is a past Rollin and Mary Ella King Native Artist Fellow with the School of Advanced Research (Santa Fe, NM), and has received numerous accolades for his textiles, including Best of Class-First Place and Judge’s Choice awards from the Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market and the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts’ Santa Fe Indian Market. In addition to his weaving practice in his home studio in Farmington, NM, Aragón is adjunct faculty of Navajo Cultural Arts at Diné College and currently pursuing a master's in education from Fort Lewis College.