For the past decade, our design practice Aranda\Lasch has been experimenting with the making
of baskets as
a
way to blend traditional Native American craft with procedural design. What has
resulted has both deepened our engagement with rule-based techniques and also informed our
understanding of how to locate them within
a
larger cultural context. The explorations began with
the observation that weaving is at its core an algorithmic process; one that builds form through
action, developing material in discrete steps to eventually create
a
complex cultural artefact. The
parallels with contemporary architectural design are unmistakable. In 2006 we collaborated
with Native American weaver Terrol Dew Johnson to explore this unexpected shared foundation
between our two practices and made
a
series of baskets for an exhibition at the Artists Space gallery
in New York called ‘Baskets: Rules of Exchange’. This collaboration continued piecemeal until
2016 when we redoubled our efforts in our ‘Meeting the Clouds Halfway’ show at the Museum of
Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Tucson, Arizona.
In those 10 in-between years we realised that our explorations were not
a
simple juxtaposition
of craft and computation. Terrol talked about his intention as an artist ‘to walk in two worlds’, to
participate in traditional native culture ...
