Textile Tour, Mexico

Date to be confirmed

Join Polly Leonard on a three-city immersion tour starting in late October 2023 to explore regions of Mexico famed for textile traditions and culture: Oaxaca, Chiapas and Mexico City. We visit Grand Masters of Mexican Folk Art in each location and travel to remote villages to meet artisans where they live and work. You will arrive in Oaxaca for Day of the Dead, where spiritual indigenous history and traditions merge with European practices. We visit cemeteries, buildings and altars, and understand the deeper meaning of this ancient celebration. Along the way, you meet backstrap and pedal loom weavers who work in natural dyes such as cochineal, indigo, and wild marigold, weaving garments and home goods.. Highlights include a shibori indigo dye workshop, and an artisan market with distinguished weavers who will travel from remote mountain and coastal areas of Oaxaca.

We next travel to San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, a Pueblo Magico and hub for Maya backstrap loom weaving. Here you meet notable indigenous weavers, enjoy an authentic home-cooked meal, better understand the iconography of cloth, and take a deep dive into Maya life. Highlights include stops at the Museo Mundo Maya, weaving cooperatives, and market meanders.

Our final destination is Mexico City where you will participate in Original, a Culture Ministry initiative to support indigenous textile creators and fight cultural appropriation. Over 3,000 artisans from across Mexico are expected to attend. We will also visit museums, fashion designers, Frida Kahlo’s Casa Azul, and enjoy sumptuous food prepared by acclaimed chefs.

Please register your interest with the events team, events@selvedge.org

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