I have been feeling quite perplexed regarding the issue of cultural appropriation, as it has arisen around the recent Wearable Arts entry. Where does the sharing of elements of culture end and appropriation begin? Throughout time, one culture has adopted symbols, art forms, ways of food preparation, and even means of governance from another culture. Our American form of democracy did not emerge out of nothingness, for example, but blended elements of Greek, Northern European, and Native American (and probably other) ways of thought about a system that could work here.
I am a quilter. If I use, for example, a Celtic symbol in the creation of a fabric piece, is that cultural appropriation? Must I gain permission from someone from that particular culture to use that symbol? If so, who speaks for that culture? I am of Polish and Slovak descent. If I were to see someone making a particular Polish dish in their kitchen and they were not of that heritage, should I be offended? Should they have to ask my permission to make that food dish?
People have taken inspiration from cultures not their own in food, art, and life in general down through the ages. We welcome students into our own town on “cultural exchange.” It can be an honest and honoring thing to take back elements of what they saw and learned to their own homes and incorporate them into their own lives. We learn. We express. We combine and integrate. And I tend to think we are all the healthier for it.
I don’t have the answer to what has recently come up, but I welcome a healthy discussion in the community to address it. I do feel that too tight boundaries lead to an unhealthy constriction in how we view the world and one another, and only emphasize separation, rather than unifying us as one people.
Judy Macnak,
Juneau