Venancio Aragon, interviewed by Sadé Ayorinde, 2022-10-31

Venancio Aragon is a Navajo (Diné) weaver. He learned to weave through “intergenerational knowledge exchange” (a common practice in his culture), from his mother as well as his grandmother’s toolkit. In this interview, Aragon talks about going to college for anthropology and native American and Indigenous studies and how that helped him understand and articulate Western influence on the trajectory of indigenous culture. Speaking specifically about his practice as an artist, Aragon describes where he sources his fibers, where he finds inspirations for his designs, and how he spins his own yarn. He calls his unique patterns and use of bright colors his “expanded rainbow aesthetic” and explains how he creates dyes from plants and other natural sources. Aragon also discusses the impact of colonialism on issues of gender and the separation of labor, and the preservation of Indigenous art and objects in museums.