Native North American Footwear

Exhibition: Beauty, Identity, Pride: Native North American Footwear
Dates: Permanent exhibition

Place: The Bata shoe Museum, 327 Bloor St. W, Toronto (Canada)

Admission:  $14

Webpage: www.batashoemuseum.ca

About the exhibition:

Created by Indigenous peoples from diverse regions of North America, ninety pairs of shoes, boots and moccasins will showcase exquisite craftsmanship, regional patterns, and beautiful decoration. The exhibition features rarely seen artifacts chosen entirely from the Bata Shoe Museum's foremost and comprehensive collection of Native footwear.

A unique feature of the exhibition, Discovery Drawers allow visitors of all ages to learn, discover, and in some cases touch materials that amplify the content of the gallery. Your exhibition visit will be enhanced by a direct experience with the materials and artifacts:

Learn the origin of natural dyes and pigments in the American Southwest

Discover which fur trade items ended up on moccasins in the Northeast

Touch moosehair, caribou fur and a child's moccasin from the Subarctic.

You'd be surprised at the amount of variation in Native North American footwear. Our collection is one of the world's most extensive, and we've chosen some beautifully crafted examples which will change the way you think about moccasins! Here's a sampling of what's on view.

About the Museum:

The Museum's collections have grown over the years and now number over 12,500 artifacts: far too many to be all on display at once! In order to highlight different aspects of the collections, we offer three time-limited changing exhibitions as well as one semi-permanent exhibition.

© Text and image: The Bata Shoe Museum