We Weave We Design

Design Question

Where I got Started?

How might we help our partner social enterprise better support the women artisans to preserve the indigenous culture?

Research

What I did to better understand the problem space?

1. Secondary Research

To better understand the ecosystem of the craft sector in Guatemala, we collected information of different scales: from policies made for benefiting exportation to detailed analysis of different business models. We synthesized the information on this ecosystem map.

we couldn't know the voices of the artisans from accessible information. We identified this lacking as an important "missing piece" in our ecosystem map.

2. Community Research Workshop

We conducted 2 workshops separately with 2 groups of artisans in San Jorge, one of the villages around Lake Atitlán. In the activities, we gained a holistic understanding of their lives, culture, short and long-term goals.

"the magic bag" activity: At the workshop, Artisans teamed up and picked a question card without seeing from the tote. In a given time, they discussed the question and either wrote or drew their answers on the card. They shared back their discussion in the ending session.

"time capsule" discussion: Except for asking questions about their status quo, we also brought the lens of future in the research in order to know their expectations about the future of their community. We introduced a fictional scenario where they are required to put 3 stuffs in a “time capsule” to send to their future generations.

Stakeholder Interview:
We interviewed our partner organization on topics like, engagement with local artisans, production model, artisan's reaction to their services, etc.

Insights

What I learned from the research?

1. Key Insights

They are proud of the knowledge of weaving but they don’t want their kids to be artisans.
They can’t design the textile but they get a sense of achievement when they design on their own.
Income generation is their first priority for weaving.
They hope their work be recognized and valued.
They heavily rely on middlemen.
Some artisans want to have their own business.
Artisans with high literacy level or Spanish speaking artisans have better opportunities to get on the Board of Directors.

2. Problem & Opportunity

Major Problem Area
Artisans are losing their creative ability due to
the current production model.
Under this model, they no longer design patterns that reflect their identity and culture, which used to be the main source of artisans' creativity.

Opportunity Area
Design through cultural expression
Most social enterprises who work in the craft industry use the red part of the system to fulfill their mission of empowering artisans. They focus on income incentive and education more than culture preservation and design training. We were hoping to embed artisans' traditional "design through cultural expression" process to the current production model, in order to empower artisans through a more holistic empowerment model.

We Weave We Design Workshop

What we came up to address the problem?

Cultural Crosspoint

We Weave We Design is a 4-session workshop designed for our partner organization, aiming to create a space for indigenous artisans in Guatemala to design textile products through cultural expression. I worked collaboratively with 3 other student designers and led the workshop design part of the project.

Section 1 | Provide a historical & cultural context
A lecture was delivered by an anthropologist who works at Museo Ixchel in Guatemala City. The content covered the origin of weaving culture in Guatemala, the evolving of textile style through history and the significance of symbols and color in the patterns. A casual discussion was held after the lecture, where student fellows and artisans had conversations about the lecture, design and weaving culture.

Section 2 |Cultural reflection and design inspiration from the present
Artisans shared the stories and meaning of the object to each other and to student fellows. A worksheet was used to collect their stories. Student fellows shared their understanding of the process of abstraction to artisans and held a discussion about weaving culture in different regions. After the presentation, student fellows and artisans completed an exercise together about interpreting emotions through drawing.

Section 3 |Design using a progressive step framework
The artisans then individually designed their pieces on paper, the Santiago Atitlán community designed belts and the San Antonio community designed bracelets individually. They were inspired by the activities that took place beforehand.

Section 4 |Decision making, prototyping and celebration
After each artisan’s design was complete, we put them together and presented the significance behind their creative decisions. Artisans spent hours weaving their final pieces. Finally, each artisan recorded the meaning of their design, took photographs with their work, and a final celebration party with lunch was shared by all!

Culture Exchange: I introduced weaving culture in China to artisans. They showed strong interest in my presentation and asked me a lot of questions.

Design Process: Worksheets used in the workshop and the weaving piece an artisan made after completing these activities.

Worksheets used in the cultural reflection activity: artisans drew the objects that best reflect their culture and shared storied behind the object.

Production: artisans from Santiago community figure out texture patterns together.

Ice Breaker: we did ice breaking activities with artisans everyday, before the workshop began.

Workshop Outcomes

What artisans came up in the workshop?

Stories & Woven Pieces

In March 2019, a series of creativity-building workshops, the core part of the project, was conducted in Panajachel, Guatemala. These woven bracelets and belt were 3 out of 8 pieces created during the workshops. The 15 indigenous artisan women from the communities of Santiago Atitlán and San Antonio are the designers, weavers, and storytellers.

Community fromSantiago Atitlán:
‍“We put a heart because we love our town and our country. And this means the lake and the fish inside. And this color means summer for us. And here, you see a woman standing on the ground. This huipil is the costume of Santiago Atitlán and the coast too, it is the most typical. Like when one has their heart like that, full of peace. The people of Santiago Atitlán always use this color, white, in the huipil. And the red, too.”

Angela:
‍“Red means love, orange flowers. The purple, I just love it a lot. And it is like the sky. And this color is from the memory of the object my grandmother left me. The red is from the object that my grandmother gave me and I love her very much.”

Wendy:
“My design starts with a brown color because of the type of land we have in San Antonio, in autumn or spring. The green color reflects nature around Lake Atitlán. The red that we use for life and also when there is an eclipse, here we see between the volcano Santiago and San Pedro reflects very well the silhouette of the eclipse. The orange that means the sunsets and the volcanoes. ”