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Drawing inspiration from Seneca historian Arthur Parker who described First Nations wampum as an “ancient archive” for Indigenous peoples in 1916, this session proposal invites historical and theoretical papers investigating Indigenous materiality and archival relations, beyond the colonial settler frame. Shifting from the margins of the art historical discipline, this panel will center Indigenous art and visual culture. How does engaging with Indigenous materials as ancestors as beyond-human kin, as travellers and cultural belongings, as mobile and sentient things, reframe our relationship with Indigenous artworks in colonial archives? For Indigenous and allied scholars, writing archival experiences into scholarship helps unsettle the expectations of colonial institutions and encourages respectful engagement with material things for Indigenous and settler communities. This session proposal welcomes papers from a variety of disciplines with an engagement in Indigenous arts, Indigenous histories and archival dynamics.

Keywords: Indigenous materialities, wampum, tufting, beadwork, quillwork, sashes, travellers, ancestors, cultural belongings, indigenous-settler relations, colonial institutions, archival methods, material culture studies