Surface Work as Crafting Worlds: Perspectives on Making and Meaning in the Indigenous Americas

Symposium organisers: Sanja Savkic Sebek, Max Carocci and George Lau

Place: University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

Venue: Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts (Lecture Theatre TBC)

Dates: 25–26 September 2026

Speakers, presentations and abstracts

What happens when surfaces are approached as active sites of knowledge, relation and transformation rather than passive adornment or canvases? How is meaning structured, transmitted and experienced through surfaces in painting, weaving, engraving, carving or modelling among Indigenous peoples of the Americas? And how do patterns, forms and techniques move across media and artworks, linking diverse practices through shared logics of articulation or disruption?

This symposium examines ‘surface work’ as a fundamental dimension of artworks and artistic practices across the Americas. More than mere decoration or bearers of imagery, surfaces can be epistemic, cosmological and agentive. Yet despite rich case studies, pertinent museum collections, and considerable popular and scholarly interest, joined-up, interdisciplinary and interregional considerations of surfaces remain rare. Building on recent theorisation (e.g., ‘playing surfaces,’ ‘texturology,’ ‘skins’), surfaces remain a productive domain to consider anew the relationships of art and material culture, signs and communication systems, and knowing and being in the world.

Bringing together specialists in archaeology, anthropology and art history, and with case studies spanning North, Central and South America, this symposium fosters a cross-continental dialogue on surfaces, their elaboration and their importance for people, past and present.