According to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography’s (INEGI) November 2024 Satellite Account of Culture in Mexico, the culture sector’s gross domestic product in 2023 was 820,963 million pesos, or 2.7% of the GDP of the entire Mexican economy. The largest share of this comes from the handicraft sector, accounting for 19.1% of the total. Unfortunately, many artisans live in remote and isolated areas, rife with poverty and instability. One Oaxaca collective is looking to change this however, and provide artisans with the ability to live successful, dignified lives while helping their communities and preserving indigenous cultures.
By breathing new life into traditional art forms, collective action can empower rural communities with sustainable opportunities, all while fueling local economies. Instead of leaving their homes in search of work, families can build thriving livelihoods and preserve traditional culture, without the need to seek work elsewhere.
Since April 2013, Maddalena Forcella and Ana Paula Fuentes, a pair of designers based in Oaxaca city, have been working on design projects to assist remote towns in the state by sharing their expertise on natural dyeing and the variations in textiles that arise from the use of thinner thread.
The “Weave a Real Peace” project, which emphasizes the quality of the product and the responsible use of natural resources, has an impact on the environment as well as society. Fuentes describes their mission as “facilitating inclusive design processes that weave together people, ideas and inputs around a shared vision,” and the foundation is now working with similar groups across Oaxaca.
Unlike brand design, which leaves the designer’s personal mark on the final product, traditional handcrafts helps the artisans, who are already experts in their field, to push their creativity to create pieces they had not previously thought of and expand their personal work and artistic vision.
For Fortella, providing a tool that allows them to express their creativity through seemingly simple things like color combinations opens a new world for each craftsman.
Micaela Jiménez and Alicia Domínguez, two local weavers, talked about how they began working together as a cooperative in San Bartolo Yautepec, which is three and a half hours from the capital of Oaxaca.
“Ana Paula Fuentes gave us a call and asked if we thought our community would be interested in learning how to dye the cotton we use to weave our clothes with natural colors, after talking it over, we agreed to establish a cooperative…so that we could all learn from it,” Micaela Jiménez explained.
The cooperative, which consists of 16 women and 2 men, was given the name Du Xhil, Zapotec for cotton thread, the material they use to weave their textiles on backstrap looms that hang from a tree or post inside their homes. “The artisans have been doing this activity since they were young; they have acquired the skill that can only be gained with consistency over time,” asserts Forcella. “The experience gained through practice over the years gives artisans mastery in their craft.”
Because they continue to wear it, communities weave the items that make up their traditional clothing throughout time. However, when considering them as pieces to sell, they are limited to local residents and buyers, which deters younger generations from continuing their customary weaving businesses.
While exploring the area to see what the craftsmen have on hand to readily and conveniently obtain their colors, Forcella queries participants about plants or raw materials that generate natural dyes in their community. When modern synthetic aniline dyes were introduced in Mexico, textile towns began switching from natural dyes to new threads dyed with chemically generated colors. Here, however, artisans can recall the natural dyes their grandmothers used.
These days, they only buy indigo and cochineal, two basic materials that yield a variety of blue and red colors, from outside their town. While they employ other local resources, such as brazilwood, to produce the red, they only use the indigo plant to obtain the blue tones. This local focus means that communities have reduced their carbon footprint and focuses on a sustainable form of living that protects and prioritizes their local environments.
Other local artisan groups were additionally influenced by the outcomes of that collaboration between the designers and artisans. As a result of this new knowledge, their clothing offerings have become more varied, allowing the cooperative to cater to a wider range of consumers.
With weavers from Du Xhil now producing finer pieces of clothing in their communities, Weave a Real Peace has also provided marketing and commercial support, meaning that young people in San Bartolo Yautepec can now form part of the brighter future in their town, while preserving a way of life that has guided their ancestors for centuries.
Social anthropologist and photojournalist Ena Aguilar Peláez writes on health, culture, rights, and the environment, with a strong interest in intercultural interactions and historical and cultural settings.
