ARCHIVE
ABOUT
Textile Travel 01
Textiles Mapuches
This textile travel is part of my ongoing research into ancestral textile practices as vessels of cultural memory and resilience. My work explores textiles as living languages, expressions of identity, history, and belonging that sustain deep connections between people, land, and time. Rooted in fieldwork, I combine photography, storytelling, and hands-on learning to engage with practices increasingly at risk of disappearance.In Linguento, a rural village in the Los Ríos region of southern Chile, I spent several days with Frida, a Mapuche artisan and shepherd who carries the weaving knowledge of her mother and grandmother. She lives and works alone on her small farm and though her time to weave is limited, she sells her work at the local market every other day, her loom sits in her bedroom, where she weaves whenever she can.Frida’s practice reflects an intimate relationship with her environment. I learned how she harvests and prepares wool from her own sheep, how the quality of the fiber changes depending on where it grows on the animal, and how she uses local plants for dyeing, which are harvested from her garden and gathered according to the lunar cycle, following cosmological rhythms. She shared one motifs passed down orally, explaining how each one holds personal and cultural meaning.What struck me was the gap left by colonial disruption: many artisans today lack access to ancestral knowledge. Frida, who learned through oral transmission, now looks to books and online sources to fill in the silences. In her Ruka, she stores natural pigments, a hand-drawn family tree, and sticky notes with Mapudungun words, fragments of a language she is determined not to forget.The Mapuche, one of the largest Indidenous groups in South America, were violently displaced and silenced during colonization. Their language was banned, their lands taken, and their culture systematically suppressed. Frida’s weaving, like her quiet repetition of Mapudungun, is an act of resistance and remembrance. I documented the process through photography and notes, focusing on gestures, materials, and the everyday intimacy of making.This project centers on the evolving life of materials and the fragile, embodied knowledge they carry, holding space for stories often overlooked, yet vital to cultural continuity.
- Recolectando hojas de maqui, el arbol sagrado para teñir -
- Collecting maqui leaves, the sacred tree for dyeing -
- Preparando el kütral (fuego) para teñir -
- Preparing the kütral (fire) for the dyes -
FOOD INSIGHTS DURING MY STAY
Mapuche seeds: beans, corns
Frida’s sopaipillas, made with dough like bread
Exchanging recipes: Teaching how to make arepas, staple dish from Venezuela
Receta de postre Mapuche - de la familia de Frida, se la hacia su madre y ella se la hacia a su hija
(Desconozco su nombre)
Bolitas de papas dulce en leche caliente
- Rayas unas papas.
-
Apretas con tus manos hasta hacer varios bollitos.
- Las cocinas en leche con azucar hasta que los bollitos de vuelven de una textura blandita y pegajosa.
Mapuche Dessert Recipe – from Frida’s family, passed down from her mother to her, and from her to her daughter
(I don’t know the name).
Sweet Potato Balls in Warm Milk
-
Grate some sweet potatoes.
- Squeeze them with your hands and form several small balls.
- Cook them in milk with sugar until the balls become soft and sticky in texture.
Witrü, large wooden spoon for stirring the dyes.
Chilean toaster
Encimera de la ornilla donde se hace de todo. Tinte y churrasco cocinandose juntos.
Countertop by the stove where everything happens. Dyeing and grilling happening side by side.
Traditional Textile Ustensils
- Haciendo madejas de lana con una Aspa -
- Making madejas wool yarn with an Aspa -
Hilado de lana: los 2 de arriba son mios, el de abajo es de Frida
Wool yarn: the 2 at the top are mine, the one at the bottom is Frida’s
Making the yarn in the traditional Mapuche’s way using a fuipe
Putting together the yarn