The Colours of the Woodland
For the project "The colours of the woodland", the collaboration with Claudia Alarcón and Melania Pereira of the Thañí collective began in 2021. They are accompanied by the artist and curator Andrea Fernández from Salta. Thañí was formed with the aim of establishing a new form of organisation for the work of weavers from the Wichí villages along the Pilcomayo River in the Argentinian border region with Bolivia and Paraguay, and for the trade of their textiles. Andrea Fernández has been accompanying this transformation process since 2015.
In a joint process with the artist Olaf Holzapfel, the women deepen their experiences as participants in artistic production - with a focus on the investigation of natural dyes. In this way, they explore a significant economic area of their cultural production and at the same time open it up to something new. The dialogue with contemporary art opens up possibilities for the group to experiment with new elements and materials and to think anew about their products.
Holzapfel's artistic collaboration with the weavers is an expression of the necessary conversation between South and North and, above all, a necessary counter-movement to the media image production of the cultural centres favoured by globalisation: it unites natural resources, landscapes, villages and cities into cultural spaces. In the future, ecological production in a relative subsistence economy will be an essential factor for a sustainable regional economy in South America as in Europe. The consideration and diversification of different habitats with simultaneous cultural exchange are the central political economic motives of cooperation.
Holzapfel's artistic collaboration with the weavers is an expression of the necessary conversation between South and North and, above all, a necessary counter-movement to the media image production of the cultural centres favoured by globalisation: it unites natural resources, landscapes, villages and cities into cultural spaces. In the future, ecological production in a relative subsistence economy will be an essential factor for a sustainable regional economy in South America as in Europe. The consideration and diversification of different habitats with simultaneous cultural exchange are the central political economic motives of cooperation.
