Weaving That Opens to the World and Heavens

Weaving That Opens to the World and Heavens

The first time that I and many others encountered the wonderful, semi-abstract, vividly colored textile artworks by Claudia Alarcón and the art collective she helped form, Silät, was at the 60th International Art Exhibition at the 2024 Venice Biennale. A multigenerational collective of 100 Indigenous Wichí women weavers from northern Salta, Argentina, Silät came together in 2023 when a previous group disbanded. Its name, I’ve learned, means “mes…

Claudia Alarcón and Silät Are Weaving a New Kind of Fiber Art

When she was 12, Claudia Alarcón learned the yica stitch, which doubles as both a loop of yarn and a form of knowledge in the Wichí tradition. For generations, Wichí women in Argentina and Bolivia have taught their daughters and granddaughters the process of creating these stitches; Alarcón learned from her mother and her grandmother. More than two decades on, she still makes yica-based weavings. To a Western onlooker, yica appear unassuming: …