| More from Amanda Youngleson’s design intervention on Ilha de Mozambique (Mozambique island). | 
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Ilha Fashion Shoot 077 (Small) |
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Ilha Fashion Shoot 115 (Small) |
Ilha Fashion Shoot 108 (Small) |
| The pictures also show how this world heritage site is being left to decay, although there are some beautifully renovated buildings. | It was the original Portuguese capital of Mozambique, and before that an Arab trading station. |
textiles
Island designs from Mozambique
The past re-stitched
Towards the end of the Spanish Civil War, the Chilean poet and communist Pablo Neruda organised a boat to enable endangered by the political to the right in Spain to find exile in Chile. Among the refugees in the Winnipeg was Madrid artist Roser Bru. She became actively involved in the Allende period and was commissioned to produce a large textile work for the UNCTAD building, constructed in 1971 for the Third United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
The work was lost after the coup which saw Pinochet come to power. However, it has been recently discovered by an art collector Eduardo Artino, who has paid for its restoration. In the photo above you see the artist (in her 90s), with restorers Paola Moreno and Anna-Maria Rojas.
It was an historic moment as the artist could look on her work after 36 years, and see it being carefully restored to its original condition. Here’s a very concrete form of reconciliation, using the strong craft skills surviving in Chile to repair the link with a past that was so violently torn apart.
What to do with guanacos?
The adventure for craft in the University of Valparaiso continues in 2008. Last year, I witnessed the design students attempt to develop product out of a remote stony Chilean village at the end of the road called Pedernal. This year, their enterprising teacher Patty Gunther takes them to La Ligua, a centre for handmade textiles.
The students are working on a project managed by Claudia Cajtak called Wanaku. The project emerges indirectly from one of the main industries in the area, turkey farming. The company Sopraval has sponsored the project to make something of the small stock of Guanacos, which produce a fur excellent for spinning and weaving.
La Ligua is famous for a number of unique features. As a textile centre, it specialises in handmade jumpers, which you can see hanging from the front of houses. All the weavers are male. The women specialise in sweets, and a characteristic feature of the town is the palomita (little dove), a woman dressed in a white apron waving a white flag advertising the tooth-shattering confections.
The visit to La Ligua was carefully choreographed. We started by meeting the source of project at the Guanaca farm. Along with us was a local spinner Ondina de Carmen. Despite working with the fibre all her life, she had never actually seen a guanaca in reality. She brought her three
daughters along and the family seemed thrilled with the
experience. Ondina then demonstrated how to spin the fibre, using a very crude spindle weighted with a steel nut and rotating on a broken ceramic plate. The students seemed completely fascinated by this exercise in craft magic, though only one young girl was brave enough to try it out herself.
We then visited the home of one of the weavers. The man’s looms were located in his backyard under a crude shelter with lumpy mud floors. They looked crudely constructed, but appeared to work very well. Elsewhere in the garden, the fig tree was in full fruit attracting swarms of bees. The scene was echoed by us city-dwellers, with our little silver boxes, swarming over the rich material scene, gathering up raw substance for our cameras. The scene offered an unmediated world that seemed totally innocent of design. So what might design make of this?
Talking with the manager, Claudia Cajtak, it is clear that Wanaku is not a simple exercise. Though the local participants seem very keen and excited to be part of it, it may not be so easy to convince the rest of the population, which is fraught with small town rivalries.
So what should the students offer as a way of developing the rich potential of this area? What kind of compromise will be necessary to help preserve and strengthen the local culture? Time will tell, but it moves slowly in La Ligua.
Urban art blooms in Chicago
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At the entrance to the Chicago Institute of Art there’s a curious found installation. Some rather dangerous wires are growing like roots from the ceiling. And alongside a clump of weeds are emerging from the ground around a wood panel. This is a temporary structure associated with building works, but the coordinated growth from above and below nicely counters the construction around it.
I’m in Chicago for a series associated with the publication The Object of Labor: Art, Cloth, and Cultural Production which is edited by Joan Livingston and John Ploof from the Fibre Department. It’s a substantial publication that explores the link between the industrial and artistic worlds from many different perspectives. During my stay, there’s been much fiery discussion about the relevance of relational art to craft and the emerging genre of ‘world craft’.
I’m pleased to say that there seems be have been a resurgence of interest in the material arts, with growth of demand for courses in ceramics and weaving. Students seem to come from around the states to the Institute partly because its a hub of activity and also because Chicago is seen as a city that is open to newcomers (as opposed to New York).
Patricia Gunther – working with the Hilanderas of Colliguay
yolandayandres Hilado de fantasía realizado por Yolanda (Hilandera), a partir del hilado tosco, con un diseño propuesto por Andrés (Alumno de Diseño). |
Patricia Gunther is a lecturer at the University of Valparaiso. Her students feature elsewhere in this blog. She is part of a very interesting push to make craft applicable to the otherwise remote communities. They are just beginning to negotiate how their skills might be of use far from the urban centre. |
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Las HILANDERAS DE COLLIGUAY poseen la tradición de hilar bellamente la lana de oveja y tejen productos tradicionales de muy buena calidad. Cuando intentan realizar nuevos productos, estos no logran la misma belleza y calidad, haciendo difícil o nula la venta de los mismos. La ESCUELA DE DISEÑO de la UNIVERSIDAD DE VALPARAÍSO ha desarrollado varias experiencias académicas relacionando el diseño con la artesanía tradicional con efectos de trascendencia para los alumnos pero no para los artesanos, quienes no hacían uso de los resultados de aquellas experiencias. En la experiencia 2006, se está realizando una relación sostenida y constante, de mucha interacción entre artesanas y alumnos, provocando a la fecha inquietud en el grupo de artesanas de Colliguay que evalúan las propuestas de los alumnos y los resultados obtenidos, y plantean nuevas propuestas en base a lo experimentado. No se trata de que repliquen las propuestas de los alumnos sino que descubran lo nuevo que ellas mismas pueden crear. El Taller y Práctica posterior académicos, se han desarrollado aplicando la experiencia de dos talleres anteriores (2000 y 2004) y rescatando como puntos de partida en la búsqueda de nuevos productos, los recursos propios de la artesanía textil de Colliguay: el payado que es su manera de dibujar en los tejidos, el hilado tosco usado para objetos de inferior calidad, el ponpón utilizado solo para dar terminaciones a los bolsos, el vellón usado como tramas decorativas, el mimbre utilizado por un artesano vecino que ha hecho los muebles de toda la comunidad y que las hilanderas jamás habrían tejido. |
The Hilanderas of Colliguay have the tradition to spin beautifully the ewe wool and tile traditional products of very good quality. When they try to make new products, these do not achieve the same beauty and quality, making it difficult and hard to sell. During 2006, a regular relationship is being developed, with interaction between craftswomen and students. This energises the group of craftswomen of Colliguay, who given their evaluations of the resulting proposals of the students, and make new proposals on the basis of the experimented thing. It is not just that they respond to the proposals of the students, but they discover what’s new that they themselves can create. The academic Workshop and later Practice, have been developed applying the experience of two previous workshop (2000 and 2004) and maintaining outcome possibilities in the search of new products, the own resources of the textile crafts of Colliguay: the payado one that is its way to draw in the weaves, the used coarse spinning for objects of inferior quality, ponpón is used singlly to give completions to the purses, vellón used as decorativas plots, the wicker used by a neighbouring craftsman that have made the furniture of all the community and that the Hilanderas never would have woven. |
Paola Moreno – the weave notion
 “Imperdibles”, 2006, 3 superficies de 30 x 30 centímetros, construidas con imperdibles (ganchos de seguridad) metálicos. |
It’s been a while since we had the meeting in Valparaiso where we brought craft practitioners from across the south. There was far too much to show, and too little time to hear it all. Afterwards, I asked some of the local artists to provide me with an image and text of their work. I’ll post this material here, hoping that it might gather some interesting possibilities. |
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Artist statement in Spanish: Cursé estudios universitarios en diseño hace dos décadas y, desde ese momento, mis actividades han estado relacionadas con las artes visuales a través del textil. El objeto central de mi investigación está enfocado en las preguntas derivadas de la noción de tejido. Como artista y docente, mi compromiso reside en acercar el textil a aquellos nuevos ámbitos que ofrecen las artes contemporáneas, desplazando operaciones tradicionales hacia derivas más experimentales. Todo esto, se refleja en tres conceptos que forman y dan sentido a mi trabajo. La transformación de los materiales, lograda a través de la integración y coherencia formal en la construcción de las piezas. La reiteración, entendida como elemento narrativo que el tejido permite para la formación de superficies. Y, finalmente, la exposición de la fragilidad que existe en los procedimientos manuales y sus productos, sean estos complejos o simples. |
Artist statement in English: I studied design at university two decades ago and, from that moment, my activities been have related to the visual arts through textile. The central object of my investigation is focused in the questions derived from the weave notion. As artist and teacher, my commitment resides in approaching the textile with the new spheres that emerge from the contemporary arts, moving traditional operations towards more experimental drifts. All this, is reflected in three concepts that form and give sense to my work. The transformation of the materials, obtained through integration and formal coherence in the construction of the pieces. The reiteration, understood like narrative element that the weave allows for the formation of surfaces. And, finally, the exhibition of the fragility that exists in the manual procedures and their products, be these complex or simple. |
Ñanduti in Aregua
Under a shady tree, the women of Aregua produce a particular Paraguayan lace called ñanduti. This lace evolved from the influence of Tenerife lace, but has a more Guaraní emphasis on floral patterns. Below are images of two expert ñanduti makers, Osavia Yegros and lija Magdalena.
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Ñanduti literally means ‘spider web’. It is produced in quite intricate radial movements. The intricacy seems a general style of Paraguayan culture, almost like a courtly dance of the hand. For more on Paraguay, see here. |
Just imagine what kind of collaboration might be possible between these women and some of the Australian fibre artists?
