WS: Weaving Knowledge Event Series: Unweaving Esparto – A Hands-on Approach to Traditional Portuguese Basket Weaving and Its Entwinement with Colonial Narratives

How can traditional basket weaving techniques inform scientific knowledge production?

Can we use Esparto weaving as an approach to talk about colonial entanglements of the plant and the people that have worked with it?

What is the future of traditional knowledge?

These questions and more will be explored in our next workshop of the Weaving Knowledge Event Series. We have invited Milena Kalte, independent artist and researcher based in Sintra, Portugal, who works at the intersection of animal studies, cultural anthropology and traditional crafting techniques.

This workshop will introduce participants to the knowledge system of plant-based weaving, with a focus on traditional Portuguese basketry using Esparto grass, in order to explore the entangled relationships between artisans, plants and animals within the broader context of material heritage and colonialism.

The 4-hour workshop will include a more theory-based introduction in which Milena will introduce a set of traditional Portuguese basket weaving techniques and its cultural history in the Algarve region. We will take a closer look at some of the ways the fiber is interwoven by means of the techniques of ‘Empreita’ (plait), ‘Trena’ (braid), ‘Baracinha’ (cordage), ‘Ponto Capacho’ (mat stitch) and ‘Ponto Colmeia’ (coil stitch). We will look at a selection of objects that have traditionally been created with Esparto and the way these objects can be closely linked to the past history of colonial occupation and present histories/narratives that reproduce colonial thought.

In light of the publication of The Red Book – Red List of Algarvian Artisan Activities (2022) the question of preservation and conservation of (i)material heritage – and its discursive similarity to nature conservation – will briefly be touched on. The Sarnadas Village and the Loulé Creative Network will serve as a showcase to look at the way people’s personal life stories and the objects they produce are intertwined with the plants history and the question of heritage conservation. We will also ask how a relation of land-plant stewardship can be fostered in the Barrocal through the practice of Esparto weaving and the preservation of this kind of (i)material heritage.

At last, we will take the example of the object of the Esparto grass animal head that is produced all over the Iberian Peninsula and all the way down to Morocco. Animals associated to the rural and the countryside are represented such as the donkey, the bull and the sheep. But it is also very common to depict ‘exotic’ animals such as the giraffe, the gazelle, the buffalo and the elephant. We will discuss these artifacts’ mode of representation in relation to the context of the objectification of other-than-human animals, but also in terms of their agency and subjectivity. We will also look at the example of one famous Spanish artisan, Javier Sanchez Medina and the way his ‘ecological trophies’ could be interpreted to engage a paradigm of human-animal relations within the framework of subject-object and domination-submission dichotomy. The question will be raised in what way the narrative of ‘ecological trophies’ and the way the artisan poses with his artisanal trophies feed on and into the imagery of White male hunting culture and refer us back to a colonial mode of photographic representation.

In comparison, we will look at the way Milena approaches her work of animal representation within her Esparto craftswomanship. She strives to continue this expression within the craft, but also aims to break with the inherent colonial narrative where otherness is more likely to be approached as something to be captivated, dominated and exposed. She decided to use the format of the mask, instead of the head, to evoke the interactive and ritual dimension that these objects convey almost instinctively, subconsciously. The mask holds an invitation to transcend our humanness and to merge, in a way, even if it is just for a short moment, with the entity that is represented. The abstract concept of otherness is embodied while putting the mask in front of our own head and seeing the world through the eyes of the animal, the creature, the beast. The masks Milena creates apply the traditional Esparto weaving techniques and are inspired in folkloric entities rooted in the regional oral history of the Algarve, such as the Zorra Berradeira. These folk stories also touch upon the topic of indigenous/traditional ways of collaborative and localized knowledge production.

The second half of the workshop will be practical and Milena will teach the participants two different weaving techniques with Esparto Grass that will lead to the production of one, or potentially two handwoven artifacts.

Please register on Stud.IP: