MÉrtola, PORTUGAL
ALENTEJO HERITAGE TEXTILES RESIDENCY
2022
This residency aimed to facilitate international and local cross-disciplinary collaborations, building lasting connections through heritage weaving patterns, techniques and those who actively keep this wisdom alive.
Exploring and understanding the sequencing of traditional patterns used for centuries in Mértola, both to replicate and deconstruct in order to reconstruct in new ways. Diving deeply into the local wool itself, the local culture, the decorative motifs as well as the utilitarian.
We were happy to welcome two teams of designers: Flores Textile Studio and Machen Collective.
This Residency was part of the larger Creative wear + Project, co-financed by Interreg MED. Partnering with The University of Evora’s Arteria Lab and Museo del Tessuto di Prato.
Results were exhibited at the Museo del Tessuto di Prato in June 2022.
FLORES EM MÉRTOLA
Bringing together master weaver Helena Rosa from the Cooperativa Oficina de Tecelagem de Mértola with the designers Emma Pucci and Valentina Pilia from Flores Textile Studio to reawaken an historical local technique in the creation of a tapestry. This technique was traditionally used to make Colcha de Carapoulo blankets and has never been woven in the Cooperative, but was practiced locally until about 35 years ago. Smaller versions of this technique are employed in linen for details on hand-towels and placements, but not this scale and not in wool. This tapestry was inspired by a piece in the weaving museum, several of the motifs taken from details in museum pieces and mixed with new drawings, the overall design was done in collaboration with Audrey Schayes from codefrisko. This project is reviving a tradition, in turn enhancing the offerings of the weaving cooperative and establishing a long term partnership with Flores.
MACHEN EM MÉRTOLA
Under the guidance of master weaver Helena Rosa, Fatima Mestre from the Cooperativa Oficina de Tecelagem de Mértola is collaborating with the maker Daniel Heer and artist Cian McConn for MACHEN Collective in the creation of custom blankets for the collection. Weaving new designs based on the traditional cobertor patterns and grain sacks, these blankets will be included in the touring exhibition and experience of the Machen Guest Room in Portugal and beyond.
The WEAVERS
Helena rosa
Helena Rosa, the master weaver in Mértola, has been dedicated to this art for 33 years, when the last master weaver, her teacher, retired 13 years ago, she handed the torch on to Helena. She is passionate about weaving these local traditional patterns that have been passed on from weaver to weaver through the centuries, she safeguards this knowledge and prays there will be a younger generation to carry on these traditions. Helena is also an advocate for a 100% handmade process. She believes that machines change the feeling of the wool, that there is a sensitivity when the cycle of wool is done by hand that she would like to preserve.
FÁTIMA MESTRE
Fatima studied with Helena and has been weaving for 7 years. Both of her grandmothers spin yarn and her great grandmother was a weaver. She grew up watching the weavers in the village, fascinated as a child. She specializes in the Cobertor weaves, the recycled cotton fabric weaves called Mantas da Retalhos and weaving linen.
CreativeWear PLUS Project
CreativeWear PLUS builds on the results of the Interreg MED CreativeWear project (2016-2019), which brought a new attention to creativity, personalised design, and artisan and small-scale production for territorially specific value chains for the Textile & Clothing (T&C) industry. Five Creative Hubs brought together artists, designers, and creatives with T&C businesses in Italy, Spain, Slovenia and Greece. Experimentation with different interaction formats led to a common CreativeWear Model, whose transfer capacity was tested by extension to six new Creative Hubs through an Open Call in 2018 and by incorporation into the H2020 TCBL network of innovation Labs in 2019.
In 2021 CreativeWear PLUS associates three original partners from Italy and Greece with three new Hubs established in Portugal, France and Bosnia to further integrate the CreativeWear network by directing creativity towards the new challenges of circular economy and sustainability in T&C, involving areas such as bio-based textiles, upcycled clothing, and reinterpretation of cultural traditions.
The work plan sees each new Hub paired with a partner from the original project to apply the CreativeWear Model in the initial steps of building local communities and launching a first set of events in project month 6. The second phase involves deeper transnational cooperation and knowledge exchange, culminating in the project’s final event in month 13. Network sustainability is again ensured within the TCBL Foundation’s network of innovation labs.
The CreativeWear PLUS project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund
