Chilean Craft, Human Natures

The exhibition “Chilean Craft, Human Natures” aims to shed light on the diversity of the artistic know-how of Chile’s craftsmanship. This plurality of techniques also mirrors the plethora of landscapes and cultures within the Chilean territory.

The craft pieces in this collection embody centuries of tradition, using natural materials and respectfully reinterpreting Chile’s heritage, while innovating through the introduction of new techniques and aesthetics. This exercise gives new life to the creative significance of heritage and proposes a new relationship between the handcrafted work and the contemporary space it functions within.

This group of Chilean artisans embraces nature within their artistic and technical processes, using local raw materials such as vegetable fibers from lake shores, earth from the deserts, river stones and copper from the mountains.

Through the exploration of the fertile border between folk and contemporary arts, these artists strike a perfect balance between respecting the raw materials and the cultural weight of the process of making.

Agents for centuries of history and heritage, the artisans in “Chilean craft, human natures” are the authentic faces, hands and minds of a raw and delicate future.

This exhibition was curated by Romain Juilha, and produced by the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is supported by the Embassy of Chile in the United Kingdom and the British Council and the Crafting Futures Programme.

Adrien Canitrot

Born in 1984 in the south of France. His professional training began in 2000, after 2 years studying Stone Carving, he embarked on a Journey through France and Catalonia, participating in the restoration and construction of numerous Historical Monuments such as the Strasbourg Cathedral, the Saint Sulpice church in Paris and the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona among others. At 24 he received the title of “Master Craftsman”.

He has been living in Chile for 7 years, where he has specialised in creating objects made with river stone. In 2018, he was awarded the “Seal of Excellence for Handicrafts of Chile” for his creation of the WIXUR bowl, going on to consecutively receive international awards from the World Craft Council and UNESCO for the same piece. He has two of his works in Chilean museums, in addition to having exhibited his work at the International Biennial Révélations Salon in Paris in 2019.
Canitrot has been making Design Objects in stone for more than 3 years, which he chooses and extracts from the rivers of the central-southern zone of Chile. This abundant, but complex material allows him to test the limits, experimenting with thicknesses of just 2mm in some of his works.

His source of inspiration comes both from nature’s own observation, as well as from contemporary architecture. His works, which denote mastery in the trade, combine functionality and beauty, striving for the purest expression.

www.adriencanitrot.com

Instagram:  @adrien_canitrot_artisan_d_art

Atis Saez

Atis developed her trade in Chile after studying Artistic Jewellery. Since then she has spent 14 years continuing her practice alongside Industrial Design, creating her own lines of jewellery and teaching. Her connection with weaving has been natural, learning it from the women in her family and taking it to the metal.

Speaking of her practice Atis says “My products are author’s jewels, in different techniques in metal. The most representative of them is my work in metal weaving to crochet, I weave using basketwork techniques, in this case with a crochet hook, a technique called micro-basketwork. The stitch or pattern is repetitive and concatenated, which being made in metal allows me to model it at will and create figures of great volume and translucency.”

She has received Recognition from the government through the Ministry of Culture for Chile and most recently been awarded the Certificate of Excellence For Handicrafts.

http://atissaez.cl/

Instagram: @atissaez_jewelry

Celeste Painepán Nicul

“I inherited the culture from my parents and the trade of Silversmith from my older Brother who was formed by ancient Retrafes (Mapuche silversmiths), who by family tradition, passed on the ancient techniques and their symbolism.

There is an ancient tradition that consists of piercing the ears of the young Mapuche girls under a full moon. This is our first promotion ritual that enables us to be ‘Silver Ladies’. I remember when I was about 5 years old, I was initialised in the Katan Kawin (ear piercing ritual) during the Wiñol Tipantru (Mapuche New Year) by my Grandmother Antonia, who travelled from Lautaro to Santiago just to perform the ritual and give me my first pair of Chaguays (earrings).

Once the ritual ended, a celebration was made and a lamb was slaughtered for the meal. At that time, I did not understand the meaning of that celebration. Now, I do, and I realise that rather than celebration, it was a ceremony where she passed on to me her Kimûn (wisdom). My worldview embodies a sacred connection with our ancestors and it obeys to my culture, family and story.”

www.akuchajoyas.cl

Instagram: @akuchajoyas

Constanza Urrutia Wegmann

Constanza is a Chilean textile artist working and living in the capital and largest city, Santiago. She shares her time between creating works of art and lecturing in the Textile Arts Workshop at the Fine Arts School of the University of Chile.

“I grew up influenced by a historian mother that loves books and written memory, a lawyer father working in an office under what for me was a boring routine; a grandmother with some Christian Arab ancestors that fled the oppressive conditions of the Ottoman Empire, deserves special mention, she had full command of the arts of weaving and sewing, from her I learned and got to love this trade, looking at her dexterity to fix old clothes and how our furniture upholstery was miraculously transformed at the pace of a small sewing machine. My family memories were treasured as each piece of clothing was repaired, a time when nothing was abundant, except love and idealism.

All these traits are a legacy conditioning the search for subjects through which my artistic expression is channeled, focusing especially into that period in the history of my country when the common people felt that they had a place in the effort to build their dreams. Later on, when time came to get academic training in the fine arts, it was all but natural to choose textile art. Textile tradition, trade and manual abilities became my artistic language, “textility” – if you allow me a word not found in dictionaries – was an important element in my personal experience and also in the recent history of my own country.

Textiles showed up everywhere, whether I looked into native peoples’ heritage expressed in wonderful textile pieces or looking at the contemporary works such as artisanal printed fabrics. Weaving, spinning, dyeing and printing made sense and became a liberating experience that should be nurtured and developed, including both the techniques and the history related to them. Therefore, my work traces the thread between textiles and memory, in order to recover a fragment of history allowing people – through art – to rescue from obscurity such testimonies from our recent past, in the hope that such actions will help us to pursue the construction of a better society.”

Instagram: @constanzaurrutiawegmann

Dina Medvinsky

Dina Medvinsky is a textile artist, whose initial incursion in the world of Andean textiles was her research of ethnographic textiles of Isluga, a small Aymara community of the Chilean highland, for the Isluga Center of the Andean Research. Later, as Director of the Iquique Regional Museum, she had extensive contact with archaeological textiles. That experience enabled her to confirm the continuity of textile techniques, designs, and functions from ancestral times.

The artist has participated in the dissemination, promotion and curatorship of Andean textiles, also in textiles training for urban and rural workshops on design and color. Her creations have participated in collective and individual exhibitions in Chile and abroad.

www.dinamedvinsky.blogspot.com
Instagram: @dinamevdinsky

Jose Miguel Marty

Jose Miguel Marty is a Chilean artist who has been working on the revitalisation of popular craftsmanship techniques for six years, specifically on Chilean indigenous basket-making, using local raw materials.

In his work MAPUKURAM, he builds up these sculptural volumes by mixing different kinds of basket-making´s techniques. Jose Miguel tries to avoid any functional characteristic on those art pieces to rescue the sculpture’s contemplative properties.

Instagram: @jmmartyart

Manuel Martínez Contreras

As a contemporary craftsman Manuel is interested in the contemplation of the landscape and how it influences the local culture.

After visiting different regions of Chile looking to learn about their cultures and capturing images that examine the places and the experience of travelling, his work has been nourished; inspiring him to create different utilitarian objects with a territorial identity.

He seeks to establish a dialogue between nature and the daily rituals, such as food and clothing that the inhabitants of a community develop.

https://www.manuelmartinezorfebre.com/

Nicolás Hernández

Nicolás is a designer from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, having dedicated more than 25 years to jewellery making and the design of small-scale objects.

“My work has a special emphasis on design and is characterized by a constant search for new shapes through experimentation with different materials, giving special importance to the crafts.”

He regularly participates in fairs, handicraft and contemporary jewellery and design exhibitions in Chile and abroad.

Recognized with the Seal of Excellence of Artesanía Chile in 2009 for innovation in design and production, and for excellence in the use of materials.

Instagram: @nhorfebre

Pablo Araya

Pablo’s work is based on the search for and celebration of natural “waste”, such detritus washed-up by rivers. He respects the delicate ecosystem in which he lives and works, only taking what the land offers him.

“The creation of a piece always begins with the collection of materials, it is not a very simple process, many times I have had little luck but this work requires much patience and perseverance. Once I find the raw material, it guides me with the designs, I like to keep most of it in its original form, so that it gives an identity to each piece.

I usually like to think that nature speaks, and that is reflected in the process. I would like more people to visualize the beauty of the often invisible natural waste, to value it and to become aware of the environment.

As far as the production process is concerned, I rely on a chainsaw to make a rough start. Then we move on to manual work with hoes and gouges for emptying, then various grades of sandpaper and finally stamping the mark and sealing with organic natural beeswax and olive oil.”

todoenmaderanativa@gmail.com

Paula Corrales x Mitsue Kido

Lamps from Chile is a design project led by Chilean designers Paula Corrales and Mitsue Kido, which links traditional craft with contemporary design, giving new opportunities to both areas. They amplify commercial networks to benefit Chilean traditional crafts, also giving Chilean design a local and patrimonial identification by the collaboration with traditional artisans.

For the first collection of the project, 5 different luminaries were designed with 5 different traditional crafts within communities from the Maule Region of Chile, including: Crin weaving from Rari, Coiron Basketry from Uraco, Pita Basketry from Teno, Toba Stone from Quinamavida and White Clay from Vichuquén.

They will be presenting the Crin Weaving Lamps, consisting of a traditional craft from Chile made from Horsehair, a unique technique of Rari and also unique in the world. The artisans normally make small pieces with this technique that consists in the crisscross of horsehair and a vegetable fiber named Ixtle as the structure of the weaving.

“For this design, we wanted to push to the limit of the practice preserving the main shape of the technique that is the circle, making circles of 25 cm diameter. Understanding the light conditions that the natural horsehair gives, we created this applique lamp collection, highlighting the technique by the use of light. These unique pieces are made in collaboration with Pilar Vejar, crin weaving artisan of Rari.”

https://lampsfromchile.com/

Soledad Christie Browne

Soledad has lived in San Pedro de Atacama for almost 30 years. Surrounded by a vast and amazing landscape, she connects with the ancient local language: pre-Columbian pottery.

“My work is deeply rooted in the ancestral and powerful pre-Columbian pottery tradition and its ancient shaping, burnishing and firing processes. It is in the slowness of the process of building each piece, where I try to find a sort of rhythm between volume and form, stillness and movement, balance and tension. I make one-of-a-kind handbuilt, sculptural vessels using the old techniques of pinching, coiling and paddling.

Each piece is burnished with a small river stone several times during the drying process, in order to achieve a certain tactile surface. Each piece undergoes one or two firings, depending on the color and surface I am looking for. I make a low-temperature gas kiln firing and I also make the traditional open sky firing, using llama and goat dung as fuel. On a low-temperature gas kiln firing, I can obtain an evenly red surface on pieces. If I want a red surface but with some smoke and black marks, I make the traditional firing with an oxidizing atmosphere. If I am looking for a smoked black graphite marks surface, I make the traditional firing with a strong reduction atmosphere.”

Through an ongoing relationship with clay, her work is meant to express intuitions and sensations that are constantly present when inhabiting the vast Atacama Desert and Altiplano territory and its outstanding atmosphere. The territory has become a part of the artist’s own identity; silence, solitude and vastness have shaped Soledad and her work.

www.soledadchristie.cl
Instagram: @soledadchristie

Romain Juilha

Backed by his expertise as 8 years international project manager at Ateliers d’Art de France and his international network, Romain Juilha links institutions from all over the world, creative studios and actors of the sector by curating contemporary craft shows and promoting craft values on dedicated events: exhibitions, fairs, residencies, awards and conferences.