Artesanía de Galicia - POTSFINK

Textiles with the RibeiraSacra official denominationFabric surrounds us all throughout our lives. It identifies us culturally and socially.And yet it goes unnoticed, eclipsed by fashion and ephemeral tendencies.Anna Champeney, an English ethnographer, has invested in revitalising a techniquethat is natural to the region but which was about to become forgotten:Galician pile fabric. Although it is not precisely documented, this technique isaround one thousand five hundred years old. Ten years ago she left her life inNorfolk, which is her home in the south of England, and moved to the heart ofRibeira Sacra, to Cristosende, in a house with a view over the River Sil, whereshe makes cloth “with roots”, which release all the strength of the soil and theculture in which they are made.Anna Champeney discovered Os Ancares in 1995 when she was making a study on popularcraft work, where she discovered a bed coverlet made with the technique of Galician pile fabricthat was in a very bad state. “When I touched it in order to take a photograph of it, it cameapart, and I thought, ‘What a nice piece of work and in such a bad state.’” This aroused aninterest that led her to draw up a project exclusively dedicated to these coverlets. “I got the ideathat this is what I wanted to do, to take up a tradition that is about to be lost and give it lifeagain, to resuscitate a tradition”. So this English ethnographer decided to make a halt in herprofessional life and devote herself to textile production in the company of her husband, theCatalan craftsman Lluis Grau, who produces craftwork basket in which he also recovers traditionalGalician basketwork.“What we arepromoting areoriginal works,we want thereto be pride inthis traditionhere in thiscountry”Cristosende, a village on the banks of the River Sil, was the place chosen when almost ten yearsago they started out on an overall project in order to link craftwork with a sustainable rural farmingidea. Here they are not only producing textiles and baskets, but are also preparing a ruraltourism inn which provides the possibility to take training courses in their workshops. And sincethey arrived in Cristosende life in this tranquil village has been changing: visitor numbers grew,particularly coming from abroad and from places that are quite unusual in areas like these. InOctober, for example, a student will be coming from Mauritius.“All of us Galician weavers need to seek a place of our own and make very special products, andone of the ways of doing this is to connect the works to a tradition or to a zone, in my case to RibeiraSacra”. Anna Champeney is aware oft he fact that her works reflect the colours of this land. Not onlythis, she has also taken traditional works from the area, which were the red sacks, and has recuper-