Providing new formats of using traditional textile techniques to compete in the 21st Century market

 

 

In southwestern Mexico is the home of a variety of fabrics and traditional forms with techniques of embroidery and “pepenado fruncido” (pick-up weave and gathered pleats). The residents live in an area of precarious access with bad communications, and a socio-cultural diagnosis of a high level of marginalization.

The techniques they use in the production of their textile goods have been transmitted through generations. They show an elaborated graphic and figurative design with a great mastery of scale. Without any kind of pattern, they produce textile goods of a high degree of sophistication. Historically, the women have produced them for their own use, for the use of their families, or in a ceremonial manner; and the knowledge of the craft is passed down from mothers to daughters.

CADA’s main goal was to spend time with the community as an approach to social design, observing, analyzing the artifact’s creation process and the context in which it is developed, taking note of all expressions, beliefs, and concepts expressed throughout the group, with the main objective of creating a new artifact that shares the essence of the initial one, but with a new series of characteristics that allow it to adapt to different contexts in order for it to be introduced to the global arena.

By the women of San Pablo Tijaltepec, textile toys are being born. CADA sees not only the main bases of communication and the understanding of cultural heritage, but also perceives them as emotional catalysts and social mediators.

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