ABSTRACT
Artefacts are made, organisms grow: at first glance the distinction seems obvious enough. But behind the distinction, as I aim to show in this chapter, lie a series of highly problematic assumptions concerning mind and nature, interiority and exteriority, and the genesis of form. We have only to consider the artefactual status of such an everyday object as a basket to realise that the difference between making and growing is by no means as obvious as we might have thought. I shall begin this chapter by showing that the reasons why the basket confounds our expectations of the nature of the artefact stem from the fact that it is woven. If the basket is an artefact, and if artefacts are made, then weaving must be a modality of making. I want to suggest, to the contrary, that we should understand making as a modality of weaving. This switch of emphasis, I believe, could open up a new perspective not just on basketry in particular, but on all kinds of skilled, formgenerating practices. But it would also have the effect of softening the distinction between artefacts and living things which, as it turns out, are not so very different after all.
