The Anthropophagic Effect, Garment no. 2

Inspired by the nineteenth-century Ghost Dance spiritual movement, Jeffrey Gibson’s work references garments worn during ceremonies as an act of resistance against the onslaught of white settlement. Gibson, a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and of Cherokee descent, often confronts the exclusion of Indigenous traditions from art history. The title refers to the concept of anthropophagy—a cultural cannibalism whereby colonized cultures consume that of the colonizers to create a new, dominant visual tradition. For this hybrid garment, Gibson researched river cane basket weaving, birch bark biting, and porcupine quillwork, merging Indigenous craft with fashion atelier.