Woven Spaces – Architecture & Weaving | ΧΩΡΟΠΛΕΚΤΙΚΗ

Year: 2014
Location: Arsos village, Limassol, Cyprus
Activity : Workshop-Festival
Type: Public Interaction – educational – experimental
In collaboration with Charis Petrou and Maria Efthymiou [Creative Photo Room]

On the 15th-17th of August, in the mountainous village of Arsos, Charis Petrou, Maria Efthymiou [Creative Photo Room] and Chryso Onisiforou participated in a new co-design and socio-material assembly that goes by the name of Xarkis.

Our team participate in the festival with a workshop called ‘Woven Spaces-Architecture and Weaving’. Our proposal involved experimenting and constructing with Καλάμι ( Phragmites australis) in a one day workshop and in collaboration with a basket weaver, Mrs. Chrystalla from the famous ‘weaving village’ of Mesogi in Paphos, aiming to re-interpet meanings and potential applications of the material.

Cyprus 1928 basket weaving “Weaving baskets for Famagusta oranges”

Women Weaving, Cyprus, circa 1920 “The photo, taken by German archaeologist Max Ohnefalsch-Richter in the 1910s, highlights the key role that weaving once played in the island culture.” National Geographic

Cypriot Basket-straw-color combinations Pafos Ethnographic museum Photography: Creative Photo Room

Kalamia (καλάμια) as a weaving material, particularly for baskets, roofs, and fences, were quite popular in Cyprus. The village of Mesogi was famous for its’ crafts. Unfortunately, the art-craft of weaving is on a decline and close to extinction. For this precise reason and through this festival we wanted to re-introduce the material and this art, so popular once. Mrs. Chrystalla was introducing the participants into basic techniques of basket weaving and the so called Καλαμωτή, a particular way of tiding the kalamia together to create panels that could be used as fences, separation walls and more. Parallel to that, in groups of two, we guided people through basic techniques of weaving using limnia, (cutting the stick of kalami in smaller pieces) in-order to create panels of different motifs and in general to experiment with the potential of the material.

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all images courtesy of Creative Photo Room

In general, this workshop acted as an introduction to getting to know kalami as a material, how you collect it, how you clean it, cut it and try it and how to work with it, showing its possible uses and functions. On a second stage we would like to experiment with larger structures so please stay tuned for further announcements.