To preserve a country’s indigenous craftsmanship is not just an aesthetic or romantic ideal. It’s about perpetuating the countless myths and stories that are sung into each thread; it’s about liberating them from cultural amnesia. It’s to ensure the dignity of a people whose history and heritage stretches back much further than most things you’ll come across in the modern day, and the depth of wisdom that comes along with that responsibility. It reconnects us to a time when things were valued in a different way, when we understood the beauty in the crafting of a stone or how to read the seasons in the trees.
In Mexico it may be at times difficult to fully grasp the real wealth and expanse of indigenous customs, languages, and communities. There are so many regions, so many peoples, so much already being lost.
Several groups of young entrepreneurs are making it their calling to counteract this trend and to revalue and reposition the work of these scattered groups and place them back in the public’s eye. One of such companies is called Fabrica Social, a social enterprise that is at once both an organisation and brand. The organization works to develop the skills of female textile artisans via mobile workshops, addressing topics such as design, organization, administration and Fair Trade. They strive to bring the woman up to speed with modern markets and the requierements of which they more often than not are unawares of. Their in-house brand then guarantees the sale products that are developed during the workshops.
Taking a journey through the different skills and products created during Fabrica Social’s workshops and initiatives, let’s begin with Dzitnup…
Dzitnup is a women’s cooperative in the eastern Yucatan which was founded in 2006. The artisans embroider their pieces on pedal operated sewing machines, and have mastered how to manoeuvre the embroidery frame in order to create images from the traditional regional iconography of flowers, birds and vegetation.
The testimony from one of the women: “I like to embroider and to make baskets, to see how at the beginning, there are only leaves or vines that before your eyes become baskets. Or when you embroider, first you only see the threads, then you begin to draw something you see in your mind’s eye, and finally you see it appear in front of you, bit by bit, the same way a plant grows from a seed”.
In Xochistlahuaca, Guererro, you’ll find the weaving groups of Piedra Pesada, 48 Amuzga women who are learning about product design, client analysis, administration, production processes, and Fair Trade. They work with a traditional back-strap loom, consisting of two horizontal and parallel strips fastened by straps which are placed at the ends of the warp. The upper belt is fixed to an upright post, pole, or most typically, a tree, while the bottom strip is placed via another strap around the waist of the weaver.
Another backstrap loom weaving group is to be found in San Juan Colorado, Jamiltepec, but locals there still call by it the Mixteca name of Yohocuaha meaning ‘place with many vines’. “We are a group of artisan women who inherited the traditional back-strap loom weaving technique. We created this cooperative because our work isn’t valued enough. Each of our pieces is different; the weaving in each piece represents hours and hours of weariness, happiness, sadness and awareness of being Mixteca. We struggle to preserve our culture and to make cross cultural connections with other ways of thinking and living,” says one of the village’s leaders.
Heading down south to the jungle highlands in Chiapas, close to the Guatemalan border, indigineous communities here hark back to Mayan times. The group of women artisans in Zinacantán, is made up of eight Tzotzile women. They are famously known for the flowers that grow there and for their spectacular embroidery. Fabrica Social began working with the group in 2010 to redesign traditional costume and textile pieces to create contemporary products.
They now make scarves, shawls, belts, bags and accessories, first weaving them on back-strap looms and then embroidering them on pedal-operated sewing machines with the regional flowers that inspire them.
A little closer to the capital, in the state of Hidalgo, the group of San Antonio artisans have developed a highly specialised and taxing technique – one in which they diligently count each thread by hand, an embroidery technique indigenous to the Ixmiquilpan region. This technique requires that the artisans accurately count the fibres in the weave of the fabric, upon which they embroider traditional geometric or animal patterns. Fabrica Social began working with the group supported by financing from the state of Hidalgo’s Integral Family Development Department.
Their products can be found in various stores across the capital. By purchasing a pillow, a dress, a scarf, in your own small way you can become a part of something that transcends a simple purchase, and perhaps every time you glance upon the textured, colored textile you’ll remember the countless communities that poured their talent into that which shouldn’t be forgotten.
(All photos courtesy of http://www.fabricasocial.org/)