Haudenosaunee artist Katsitsionni Fox visits Alfred to replicate Grandmother Pot: Collaboration with RMSC and approval of Haudenosaunee Nations

Artist Katsitsionni Fox

Indigenous American ceramic artist, writer and filmmaker Katsitsionni Fox has been visiting the Alfred University campus this week as part of an intersectional, collaborative project between the School of Art and Design (SOAD) at New York State College of Ceramics and the Rochester Museum & Science Center (RMSC). The project, part of a larger exhibition at the RMSC, Hodinöšyö:nih Continuity | Innovation | Resilience, is curated by Jamie Jacobs of Tonawanda Seneca, Turtle Clan.

The project was introduced to SOAD by Victoria Wigal, a third-year student who worked at the RMSC as a summer intern and has been studying with Clinical Assistant Professor of Ceramic Art Jason Green.

Green and Wigal met with RMSC staff and Fox last winter to begin organizing the visit, which will focus on the production of a traditional Grandmother Pot using a mold derived from the digital scans made from a Grandmother Pot in the collection of the RMSC. Green credits Wigal "for seeing and seeding this intersection" between several institutions, technology, and digital fabrication.

While in Alfred, Fox gathered footage to be used for a short film that will document:

• The entire process of scanning
• 3D printing a replica using plastic 3D printers in the CREATE Lab
• Making experimental prints with the clay 3D printers, and
• Working on creating her own version of a Grandmother pot.

Visiting artist Katsitsionni Fox and Clinical Assistant Professor of Ceramic Art Jason Green,

As part of the planning for Fox's visit, Kathryn Murano Santos, Senior Director of Collections and Exhibitions at RMSC, reached out to representatives of Nations that may have cultural affiliation with this pot (including Onondaga Nation, Oneida Indian Nation, Oneida Nation, and Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe) to let them know of the intention to display the work in the exhibition alongside Fox's new Grandmother Pot. Those communications also included discussions regarding the partnership with Alfred University to replicate the intact pot and to request informed consent.

In August, the project received consent from the culturally affiliated Haudenosaunee Nations in support of displaying the original Grandmother Pot and replicating the pot with 3D scanning and printing technology as a way of recreating the original safely through direct contact with the replica.

In a recent interview, Fox describes Grandmother Pots as craftwork created for daily use by Indigenous people. "Making (her own) clay pots connects her to her ancestors, the women who made pots for daily use in Akwesasne, a Mohawk Territory in upstate New York," according to a transcript of the conversation.

As Fox puts it, "When I'm making pots, I'm thinking all the way back to creation."

The artist notes the majority of ancestral Haudenosaunee pottery is comprised of remnants of their work: pottery shards, pieces of pots, and only a rare few that are still intact. The Grandmother Pot in the RMSC's collection is a beautiful pre-historic pot in pristine condition.

"I imagine how it must have been hundreds of years ago when we lived in Longhouses," Fox says, "and how special it would have been like to sit by our grandmothers and learn how to make pottery. Would we have used one of her pots as a form to create a new pot? It makes me sad to think that we don't have any of our grandmother's pots to do this."