• Claudia Alarcón & Silät | La Biennale di Venezia

  • On the occasion of their participation in the 60th International Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia, we are delighted to share more of Claudia Alarcón & Silät’s work, and Alarcón’s reflections on this achievement.

     

     
  • Claudia Alarcón is an indigenous textile artist from the La Puntana community of Wichí people, who inhabit the Grand Chaco...
    Claudia Alarcón, artist and coordinator of the Silät collective. Image courtesy of Clarín.
    Claudia Alarcón is an indigenous textile artist from the La Puntana community of Wichí people, who inhabit the Grand Chaco region that straddles the borders of Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay. Alongside her individual practice, she leads the Silät collective, an organisation of one hundred women weavers of different generations. Together, they continue the centuries-old tradition of weaving with hand-spun vegetal fibres from the native chaguar plant, a communal, female-led production. Working closely with curator Andrei Fernández, Alarcón and Silät explore the possibilities of artmaking within and beyond these traditions. The collective held their first UK exhibition at Cecilia Brunson Projects in October 2023, and are featured this year in the Venice Biennale.
     
    Adriano Pedrosa’s exhibition for the Biennale, Stranieri Ovunque (Foreigners Everywhere), highlights artists located at the world’s margins, and those treated as a foreigner in their own country. Alarcón and Silät’s inclusion reflects the significance of their work as an experimental expression of contemporary indigenous culture and an important contribution to the art historical narrative of geometric abstraction in Latin America.
  • The video below documents the artists’ process of gathering the chaguar plant, spinning and dying the fibres, and weaving together.
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    Courtesy of Andrei Fernández
  • The following words are from Claudia Alarcón, transcribed and translated from Spanish:
     
    For us women, those of us who live in these places, this is nothing new. It is a very old activity. We know well the value that our jobs have, and we have no doubt about whether it is art or not. We have been doing it for many years and we understand the value it represents. Perhaps it is not the value in money, but the value it has for the sole fact that this knowledge has belonged to our elders.
  • Claudia Alarcón & Silät, Yachup [El verano / Summer], 2023
  • From the age of twelve, I began to make yarn - learning to do something that does not require knowing how to write, but rather involves using the wisdom of weaving passed down from Wichí women. Looking at my sisters who make up the Silät group today, they really are the message. It is the message for the whole world, that the world knows about us, of this place and our work. We, who maintain our language and our fabric, two things that for us are the columns that support us.
     
    The fabric belongs to us, the indigenous women. When I began to follow my own path, I was able to show the passion I have in creating these works, because it requires great passion, from the soul, to love what we are doing. And what I am doing I do with all my heart, with all my love, in each finished work I feel great satisfaction.
  • Claudia Alarcón & Silät, Fwuyetil [El Invierno / Winter], 2023
  • I, along with the Silät group, was recently invited to exhibit at the Venice Biennale this year. I am aware...
    Installation view, Claudia Alarcón & Silät in the Arsenale, Venice Biennale

    I, along with the Silät group, was recently invited to exhibit at the Venice Biennale this year. I am aware that there are many artists who would die to be in that place, so being in this group is a pleasure because it is not only me but all the other women who have knowledge about weaving. It is true that I open possibilities to the other women, because for me it is more satisfactory that all the women are there. We all want to work, we all need it and it is true that every person interested in carrying out this task that we do has their place and can participate in this art. We have always weaved, but we never imagined this, and it is very satisfying because we have been discovered and made visible. What I want from this occasion is for this to be a way out for those of us, who live in these places and have many needs, some basic like water and food. We hope these changes will bring access for our children to a better level of education, to be able to nourish themselves with good nutrition, good medication. Today we have many needs and the women believe we can get help through what we do.  We do not intend for it to solve all our problems, but rather for it to be a motivation that will open other opportunities in the future. This is what I have to say, a wish: seeing that our children, our grandchildren, are going to have more and more knowledge and are also going to weave as they learn from their elders. We continue working to show people, and our children, the practice of weaving as indigenous women. When I start weaving, I remember that I am Indigenous, I remember who I am.

     
    We named our group “Silät”, because for us that means “announcement”. We want everyone to know that we live here, that the Wichí still exist.
  • Installation view, Claudia Alarcón & Silät | Nitsäyphä: Wichí Stories, Cecilia Brunson Projects, 2023. Photography by Eva Herzog