The Wider World & Scrimshaw

Many Native communities across New England and the Pacific world — including Oceania, the Pacific Northwest, and Arctic – have cosmologies related to whales, distinctive maritime traditions involving marine mammals, and vibrant carving styles. They were also impacted by colonial occupation, American cultural influence, and commercial whaling. Starting in the 1830s, diverse communities came into contact as US whaling vessels traversed the Pacific to extract natural resources, including toothed and baleen whales, seals, walrus, and other marine animals. This extractive economy drove global exploration and trade, decimated indigenous species, forced settler colonial agendas, and affected cultural exchange and adaptation. US whaleships stopped at regular locations within this vast territory. They established colonies, shore whaling stations, and trade networks, and picked up supplies, materials, and crew. Because of this, US whaling vessels were very diverse. Crews included Black men (free and formerly enslaved), Native Americans, immigrants to New England, Azoreans and Cape Verdeans, US-born, European-descended men, and Pacific Islanders. This exhibition explores the carving traditions that emerged along whaling routes in the Pacific world, from New Bedford, MA to Aotearoa and Utqiagvik. Scrimshaw is one example. It is commonly defined as a decorative, folk, or vernacular art made by whalers on the body parts of whales. But scrimshaw was just one of many carving practices across the Pacific world. Setting scrimshaw in conversation with other forms of carving allows us to ask questions about influence, exchange, and tradition. How did whaling (internal or external) impact communities and their unique art forms? How did cross-cultural encounters influence the items produced? How do people relate to one another through carved material culture and marine mammals? Ultimately, this exhibition is about mobility and cultural and material exchange. It connects the historical and contemporary, linking the depletion of natural resources in the past with ongoing settler colonialism today. The stories encompassed within are about survival, of species and of communities. They speak about the future, and what we, collectively and in solidarity across the human-animal world, will make of it.