Beatriz Oggero exhibits in Bolivia

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SANTA CRUZ, BOLIVIA – An interesting exposition named SAVIA (Spanish for “sap”) opened to the public last November 9 sponsored by the Simon I. Patiño Foundation, and presented at Kiosko Gallery. Curator Raquel Schwarz, with the inspiration of Hagamos el bosque (Make A Forest)—a Dutch organization dedicated to sustainable management of tropical forests (http://www.makeaforest.org)—selected 20 renown contemporary artists from Bolivia to present SAVIA through various artistic mediums.

Beatriz Oggero’s “Relict” is made of 220 modules woven in copper, mercerized cotton, and viscose in hues of green, and draws its inspiration from the Andean forest. It measures 40″ X 75″ by 8″ depth, with the upper part in light tones and the bottom in dark ones the way it is in the woods when seen from the air.

“Relicto” is a word to define remains of life organisms from the tertiary geologic Era —both vegetable and animal, which are scarce in the world: there are deposits in Chile, the Canary Islands, and Australia.

…”My idea when choosing this title, was that if we continue destroying the forest the way we have until now, there will only be these wonderful relicts left which, were we talking about human works, would be known as “relics”. While making the piece I thought that manual weaving in this contemporary world of digital looms, is also a relic of sorts, and that’s why I liked the term: I thought it was both strong and poetic…”

—translation by —Silvia Piza-Tandlich

Beatriz Oggero: "Relict" - detail

Identity fashion from 10 Argentine provinces

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The National Culture Secretariat represented by the program, “Productive Identities”  
and the National University of Mar del Plata
proudly present 

PRODUCTIVE IDENTITIES, SERIES 1 X 10

Wearable accessories collectively created and produced by 680 crafting designers from ten provinces of Argentina:

La Pampa, Santa Cruz, San Juan, Chubut, Santiago del Estero, Formosa, Jujuy, Chaco, Mendoza, and Río Negro.

Fair, Show, Parades, Workshops, Live music

 December 7 – 10: 10am – 9:00pm

Free of charge

Address: Manzana de las Luces, Perú 294, City of Buenos Aires, Argentina

 
 
 
 
 
—Silvia Piza-Tandlich, translation
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Colombian Indigenous Material Culture – Part 1

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The following is my translation of Martha Alvarez’s conference at the 6th WTA International Biennial of Contemporary Textile Art in Veracruz, Mexico. I find Indigenous cultures a fascinating source of inspiration and stamina from the human point of view, far beyond being the textile basis we already knew about.              —Silvia Piza-Tandlich

Indigenous Material Culture Within the Global Frame of Contemporary Crafts

This conference poses reflection upon the present situation and weaving practices—as well as their resulting objects of material culture, within the context of the Indigenous world—interferences in these practices, and changes generated in order to introduce objects into the global market.

1. Indigenous Material Culture & Crafts

A society’s material culture arises in order to provide the necessary elements to satisfy utility and ceremonial basic needs as far as housing, transport, attire and accessories. To Indigenous groups these are objects of identity, world representation and, at the same time, an extension of the universe.

Maruamake – Kogui village

The object is made in a tight relationship between the Indigenous and their natural environment, allowing self-stocking up with materials that are going to transform, with a permanent dialogue with their surroundings.

Kogui dwelling in progress – Sierra Nevada

Generally, weaving is a feminine occupation and gathering materials is a masculine task, with few exceptions such as the case of Arhuaco, where man gathers material and weaves cotton for his characteristic attire and cap. Since the woven object is produced and matter is transformed by the Indigenous themselves, they don’t have a real understanding of the value it might have at market, which is the reason why many times intermediaries buy it cheap, and sell it for a lot of money.

Embera woman at work

It is important to mention that the woven object carries a great symbolic and cosmogonic charge upon its creator and the bearer. An arhuacan bag is designed and created according to the person using it, because it denotes the comings and goings of its owner’s life, which is to say the thread is the course of life itself. Werregue basketry shows an entire shamanistic ceremony, or a daily scene such as weaving, thus turning us into its collocutors.

Arhuaca bags

These elements become crafts when produced in series with the aim to exchange them, supply a market, and receive supplemental income, thereby losing a great deal of its primal intent.

Colombia has over 80 Indigenous cultures who own an ancestral weaving legacy: basketry, cord making, needle and loom knitting. Some stand out for the aesthetic value of their elements, such as Wayuu, Wounaan, Embera, Sinú, Kogui, Arhuaca, Cofán, and Inga—to name only a few. Each has specialized in distinctive products, well-liked in national and international markets (more so the latter), such as the case of Werregue and Wounaan baskets, or Wayuu and Arhuaca bags, or Embera and Inga chaquira (beaded) knitting, or Cofan and Inga belts.

Embera woman, weaving

These elements come as legacy from trade, myth, and tradition, generation after generation. They are preserved thanks to having daily-use character and, through time, they have transformed due to external influences. That is how certain fibers get replaced, and natural original pigments become synthetic. Shape and color are also changing due to trends, globalization, or more competitive market demands.

Werregue baskets

Due to the great aesthetic, practical, and ethnic value of Indigenous knits, their products have become popular in craft markets, and with collectors and specialized galleries, formalizing its creators’ role within artisan associations. Now with this status plus active entry into the artisans’ sector, they can receive ongoing capacitation and consulting such as the agreement between Indigenous authorities and Artesanías de Colombia (“Crafts of Colombia”), or some other specialized outfit, offering capacitation in the fields of organization for production, administration and business development, capacitation and consulting in crafting processes, design and re-design, innovation, product development, and marketing.

U’wa grandmother, knitting

I would say there are two clear lines of production: tradition, and innovation or intervention. In the latter the industrial designer gives instruction as far as transformation of material culture objects, orchestrating and/or sometimes imposing criteria, which sometimes lacks knowledge of ethnic processes and dynamics, and even disrespecting know-how, practice, and tradition. These resulting products are in great demand in certain marketing segments, but they’re not taken inside the community for obvious reasons.

  

Author, Martha Liliana Alvarez Ayala is a Colombian textile artist, consultant and independent researcher.

Contact: http://marthalvarez-textil.blogspot.com/

Phones: 057+ 3112635283   – 3015991000

 
 
 

Colombian Indigenous Material Culture – Part 2

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The following is my translation of Martha Alvarez’s conference at the 5th WTA International Biennial of Contemporary Textile Art in Veracruz, Mexico. I find Indigenous cultures a fascinating source of inspiration and stamina from the human point of view, far beyond being the textile basis we already knew about.             —Silvia Piza-Tandlich

Indigenous Material Culture Within the Global Frame of Contemporary Crafts

This conference poses reflection upon the present situation and weaving practices—as well as their resulting objects of material culture, within the context of the Indigenous world—interferences in these practices, and changes generated in order to introduce objects into the global market.

SENA Fashion

2. Hand-Crafty Colombia

Nearly one million Colombians live directly or indirectly off of the crafts sector, greatly contributing to the national economy. There are some 450,000 artisans, 60% coming from rural areas and Indigenous communities, and about 65% being women.

Weaving hammocks

The Artesanías de Colombia (“Colombia Handicrafts”—entity that regulates everything related to crafts in my country—has categorized and characterized the sector in three groups:

Embera basket

Indigenous handicrafts: Production of entirely useful, ritualistic, and aesthetic goods, conditioned directly by physical and social environments, constituting a material expression of culture in communities with ethnic unity, but relatively self-contained. It represents live Pre-Colombian heritage with a certain level of development.

Knitting woman

Popular handicrafts: Production of objects that are both useful and aesthetic, made anonymously by a community exhibiting complete domain over materials which are generally from each area’s habitat.

Contemporary crafts, or Neo-crafting: Production of useful and aesthetic objects within the frame of trades, whose processes offer convergence of technical and formal elements coming from other socio-cultural contexts and techno-economic levels.

During more than a decade there has been a surge in the handicraft environment bringing forth great recognition to the handcrafted product. This phenomenon has encouraged the sale of objects with design, generating enthusiasm in this type of competitive production that can be introduced to global markets.

Another prevailing characteristic is the fusion of techniques and materials: for example, you can find a traditional ceramic vessel with a decorative motif in basketry.  This added value has considerably elevated sales of these products.

3. The Wayuu Case 

The Wayuu have their settlement in the Guajira Peninsula bordering Venezuela. They have an ancient knitting tradition and create multiple objects—especially blankets, hammocks and mochilas (circular-based bags with tubular body made with needles, with woven or gauze straps).

Wayuu mochilas

Nowadays, their products present the greatest intervention from industrial and textile design, to fashion design. They can be seen at international catwalk shows, boutiques, and mingling with all sorts of objects to the point of it not being easy to recognize whether they’re original Wayuu, or not.

PROENSA fashion bag

The traditional strap, which is part of the mochila is now woven alone by the thousands, and is sold as prime material to the creation sector and leather industry. Thus, it becomes a disarticulated piece far from its essence, and prostituted by commercialization greed.

Design by Silvia Tcherassi

At the Expocrafts International fair being held in Bogotá for over 20 years, you can notice that the Wayuu stand that had a shy presence long ago, has given way to over 20 in 2010—some specialized in accessories and fashion—and next to them you can see Wayuu women promenading with their “latest designs”—objects not even they can describe when I have asked about them: blankets with trendy finish and ornaments, pricey accessories, mochilas turned into backpacks…indeed, all sorts of interventions making the originalobject unrecognizable.

Many women come to my workshop wanting to explore and learn textile techniques, and for about two years I repeatedly hear requests: —”I want to learn to knit belts, cords and Wayuu mochilas, because it’s what clients ask for all the time.” I usually wonder, and question them, “What would they feel—what would women who bequeath tradition think, when they see what their culture turns into?” They don’t answer…

Author, Martha Liliana Alvarez Ayala is a Colombian textile artist, consultant and independent researcher.

Contact: http://marthalvarez-textil.blogspot.com/

Phones: 057+ 3112635283   – 3015991000 
Colombia

3rd Encounter of Natural Fibers in Uruguay

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3rd Encounter of Natural Fibers

When:    October 21 – 23, 2011

Where:   Día del Patrimonio en Castillo Piria in Piriápolis,       Uruguay

Local artistic creators will celebrate their live cultural patrimony by generating participation and awareness with their natural environment. Discussion groups, networking, expositions and workshops.

Contact: Graciela Miller http://facebook.com/artegracielamiller

—Silvia Piza-Tandlich

The 60’s revisited and doing good social work

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I arrived in Davis, California in 1976 and as it turns out, being too young in the 1960’s made me miss out on most of the hippie macramé curtains and tie-dyed shirts, although I still have the book, “Quilting, Patchwork, Appliqué, and Trapunto” by Thelma R. Newman, which I got for Christmas. Now in plain 21st century, I didn’t easily recognize a renaissance of the same campy elements and political thinking that characterized the 60’s, which might have to do with a change of era and its sociopolitical repercussions—just as it did back then. No need to remain hippie, however, because nowadays this artistic language goes by the label Decolonial Art since it emphasizes in questioning the so-called hegemonic culture.

—Silvia Piza-Tandlich

Alejandra Gutiérrez: Wonderbra.

Last year I saw an article in the local paper about Costa Rican artist, Alejandra Gutiérrez winning Special Award at the 4th Latvia Triennial of Fiber and Textile Art, with a huge Wonderbra measuring 165 x 220cm (5.4 x 7 feet).  Her message was clearly political and clearly feminist in a Latin American world of macho dominance and social by-standards, and very fitting within other contexts throughout the world. From the textile point of view, however, what really caught my eye was the seemingly clumsy or bungled way of arranging otherwise fine elements…as if the piece was actually intended to convey two messages instead of one. It wasn’t until this week that I came to recognize the 1960’s style in Alejandra’s work, which can be camp, pop, “low” or whatever new twist may be resorted to in order to make her art transcend.

Alejandra in her studio, with "Catadupa Admirabilis" ("Splendid Waterfall") in the foreground.

Alejandra is very successful in creating a social structure through textiles, and dedicating her vast artistic creation to empower herself as well as the lives of other women around her. Her themes deal with the effects of gender disparity and social critique in today’s society. Curator Marcela Valdeavellano explains: “…she strives to make art that asks us to reconsider the significance of both image and context, which may provide new understanding of how the two collide to shape our culture.”

“… MON 810 protests a species of transgenic corn, which belongs to the technology called Terminator, which causes transgenic seeds to become sterile. This property will radically alter traditional methods of agricultural production in benefit of corporations, in obvious detriment of our traditional agriculture where corn is a staple…”          

Alejandra Gutiérrez: Movie-Style Kiss. Mixed media textiles, 2009.

“… The society of show business has permeated our lives and now we no longer know what is true and what is Hollywood celluloid…” 

A Scholar at the International Textile and Apparel Association in California, USA, Alejandra is one of the two Latin American artists who were finalists in the above mentioned Latvia Triennial, being the only Central American who has earned this distinction.

In 2009, the Cajías Cultural Foundation in La Paz, Bolivia acquired her work MON 810, selected for the SIART Biennial of Art, Bolivia. On that same year she won the Acquisition Prize by the Helmspark Gallerie for her tapestry, in which she refers to the issue of breast cancer.

Alejandra Gutiérrez: Movie Star. Apparel Award by Fiberats Magazine/VISART, 2009.

In April 2010, Alejandra was also a finalist in the contest by the late Fiberarts Magazine and VISART Arts Center, Maryland, USA, “Wearable and Unwearable Art,” participating with an evening bag built with movie strips from the 1960’s, which she named “Movie Star”.

 Contact:
+506 2228-5522 atelier   –   +506 8882-2727 mobile
P.O Box 1525-1250, San José, Costa Rica
alegutierrezm@gmail.com
blog: tejolavida.wordpress.com
 

The following photographs were taken during the 6th WTA Biennial of Contemporary Textile Art in Mexico, where Alejandra participated as a lecturer:

Xalapa, Mexico, 6th WTA Biennial opening.

Sheila Hicks and Alejandra Gutiérrez in Mexico.

Sheila Hicks and Alejandra Gutiérrez, Mexico, 2011.

 

SELF-HELP ART

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DELIVERY AS IMPORTANT AS CREATION:

“…We’re made of the same material, even though the form varies. We fear and desire the same, although each of us arranges it in a different order, same as we mold our sieve alter ego…”

As a contemporary textile creator, Ariane Garnier represents time and culture within the social structures that support and inspire her. Born in Costa Rica and educated as a visual artist, she resorts to a variety of techniques to deliver her message of self-help, growth, and transformation.

Since her first presentation 14 years ago, her discourse has evolved and has led her to develop the concept of joint self-help art, with human homogeneity as center stage. In her talented hands, the term social projection involves making art as well as studying each of the knots that trouble our modern self.

Ariane Garnier: Dress. Sieve, sewing and embellishments.

“We are made of the same material, but we only perceive that resemblance through the sieves of illusion. That’s the reason why we usually consider ourselves as individuals having a unique self, but that perception is made of an assortment of sieves we have set—one against the other—along history until we reach blindness.” 

The above tautological attitude is depicted by Ariane in her metallic threads—“seams and ties exposing our condition clearly.”

Ariane Garnier & Rafael Sáenz: Everyone With All. First prize piece at 4th WTA Biennial of Textile Art&Design, Costa Rica, 2006: "Man+Woman= Creation"

Among achievements is her First Prize at the 4th WTA Biennial in 2206.

Ariane Garnier & Perfect Feather, one of participants at Fuerteventura, Spain project.

She then built her first textile colloquium: Absence/Presence  through a performance/installation in mesh at the 7th Art Encounter in Genalguacil, Spain and, of course, her Women’s Forest project in Costa Rica was most interesting, where low-income peasants as well as higher-income city women designed and wore their own dresses.

Ariane Garnier: Art-Team Building project, Gran Canaria, Spain, 2007.

Ariane’s artistic expression weaves sieves made of several layers of metallic fabric. As “owner of her own Triumphs and Failures,” her social projection is, however, participative art that allows access and growth as a way to transform us.

Ariane Garnier: Women's Forest project participants, Turrialba, Costa Rica.

Together with partner-curator Marcela Valdeavellano, Ariane owns and directs La Zona Entrenarte (The Trainart Zone in English), a gallery/workshop space where they conduct frequent participative exhibitions and self-help artistic events.

I find it interesting that Ariane’s materials are cold and harsh, yet her human makeup is warm and meaningful. “In the end, we’re all the same; and if we’re creative, and if we’re aware, we’ll be able to build together instead of destroying separately…”

Ariane’s contact: http://www.arianegarnier.com     http://www.entrenarte.info     http://www.vimeo.com/user2718107/videos 

Ariane Garnier: Air Draft. Sieves and cords, shaped and sewn. 6th WTA Biennial of Contemporary Textile Art, Mexico, 2011.


—Silvia Piza-Tandlich

Beatriz Oggero: Artist and Teacher

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DIALOGUE WITH MATERIALS AND TIME

Beatriz Oggero is an accomplished textile artist and teacher. Born in Uruguay and now living in Cochabamba, Bolivia, she’s a child of two very strong textile cultures. 
She claims to have a hard time answering the routine question, “what do you do for a living?” Yet, what she does was presented at a recent retrospective show featuring an installation of miniatures in an impressive array of textile techniques, plus a transparent tapestry knitted with two needles, made of 400 copper wire rectangles and color gauze.

In principle, we could say she uses tools such as time, rhythm, contrast, structure, and transparency. Not everything she does is an expression of gender, but neither can we forget she’s a woman: feminine elements appear to underline her work, especially in her conceptual reasoning. 
Obsessed with time, she views the material aspect of work in terms of the time it contains: time to spin, time to dye, time to weave, stretch, wash, iron, sew…time,time,time…it’s also the time of a woman involved in these textile activities, which makes her identify with ancestral and primal textile endeavors from way back in Andean history.

Beatriz Oggero: "Contrast rhythm transparency". Torn cotton mesh dyed with tanning agent, hand sewn. 2004

Beatriz has been “at it” since 1980, when she studied with maestro Ernesto Aroztegui, the Tapestry Father of Uruguay. She had studied Art and Art History and had begun to work as a teacher, when her country was overtaken by the military regime known as The Process (El Proceso), and educated people were thrown out of their professions. Being forced to stay home she pursued sewing as a hobby. She made her children’s clothing, and later on decided to learn to weave, too.

Beatriz Oggero: "Mi zorzal" (My thrush), cigar box, raw hide, feathers, maize kernels, wire, seeds. 2005

In 1982 she was one of the founders of CETU (Center for Uruguayan Tapestry), which later became the Center for Textile Art of Uruguay since many artists evolved from solely Gobelin to mixed-media textiles. She later became President of this institution from 1986 to 1990 and organized two mini-textile international encounters, and in 1991 was invited to lead and develop the textile section at the Center for Industrial Design of Uruguay. 

Beatriz Oggero: "Contra Ruta", 50 X 800 cm, 800 rectangular modules, silicon-glazed copper thread in various gauges, metal sticks. 2008

Today, in Bolivia, Beatriz weaves with copper wire and various types of threads. She enjoys both mini-textile and large format tapestry techniques, and despite the variety of techniques employed, her style is recognized and respected throughout Latin America for its transparency and pliable look. Beatriz is known to manipulate wire as if it were cotton!

Contact: http://www.beatrizoggero.blogspot.com

Beatriz Oggero: "Contra Ruta", 50 X 800 cm, 800 rectangular modules, silicon-glazed copper thread in various gauges, metal sticks. 2009 . 5th WTA Biennial of Contemporary Textile Art, Argentina.

Beatriz Oggero: Work detail.

—Silvia Piza-Tandlich, translation