Piedad Aguilar, director of the Textile Art Biennale: “We want to recover textile art as one of the pillars of contemporary art”

Aguilar Foot (37) He has no memory of the beginning of his fascination with textiles. “It’s always been a part of me,” he says. When she was little, she made the clothes she needed herself, and by the time she was 18, she was already selling what she produced. Study Visual Arts at Catholic University and did a Masters in Fashion at Goldsmith University of London and for 8 years he devoted himself to fashion, where his role as creative director of Hall Central and founding partner of MODA Chile . “In London, I realized that the world of textiles covers all spaces, from what we wear to Highland textiles or Middle Eastern rugs that tell a story. There’s a lot of information out there about textiles, and it’s fascinating,” Piedad says.

Currently, Piedad is behind A Whole New World (@awna) , a rug and tapestries brand that personally designs and crafts using only natural materials from Chile and seeks new ways of seeing, understanding and making textiles through the study of color and organic forms of nature. In addition, he shares his knowledge as a teacher at the School of Creative Professions of the Catholic University of Temuco and is director of country’s first Textile Art Biennale (@bat.chile) , a project that seeks to celebrate and make visible the contemporary expression of textile tradition. “We want to claim textile art as one of the pillars of contemporary art and be its greatest representative in Chile and Latin America,” he says.

Through the work of 25 national and international artists, the main section, entitled Spring Festival -directed by curator Matías Allende-, shows a great diversity of styles and techniques. Are series Spies by Catherine Bauer embroidery on jeans fabric Ettore Favini the work of Constanza Urrutia, who seeks to bring into dialogue the role of the textile factories that disappeared in Chile in the sixties and seventies and the looms of Paulina Brugnoli , one of our country’s most important artists, scholars and researchers, who has been developing research on pre-Columbian Andean textiles for over 50 years. The exhibition will be presented from September 30 to November 19 at MAVI UC and the CEINA Cultural Center.

Additionally, until November 12, BAT presents the exhibition There are oblivions that burn and memories that magnify in the Design Gallery of the La Moneda Cultural Center . Composed of 27 arpillères – 18 of them are part of the collection of Salvador Allende Solidarity Museum and nine contemporary works created between 1997 and 2023 in the artistic workshops of the Casa de la Mujer Huamachuco II in Renca – the selection reflects this powerful technique that women have used for years to reflect their domestic and gender experiences.

The idea of ​​organizing the first Textile Art Biennial in Chile has been in your head since 2018. Where did the motivation to carry out this project come from?

The idea came to me with friends linked to the world of textiles, art and culture, because we had not seen much on this subject in Chile and we felt that there was a very great debt exhibition. In 2019, we did a test with the Living Languages ​​exhibition, which we called “Biennial Zero”, which to our great surprise was very well received by artists and the general public; In one month, more than 2,500 people participated. This experience gave us the determination to start thinking and working on the Biennale, but then the pandemic hit and the team disbanded. In 2022, I insisted again: I reconstituted a team and we designed this project which aims to make textile art visible from the field of contemporary art and to elevate it to the place it deserves .

What were the challenges of organizing an event of this scale? ?

The most complicated thing is raising funds. In this country, it is difficult to find funding for cultural projects, especially when they are new. But together with the team – all outstanding professionals in their specialties – we decided that this difficulty would not prevent us from realizing our idea, which is why after studying new financing models, we launched crowdfunding – always open – in which natural persons contributed to the realization of the biennial. I find it interesting how funding can also have a collective dimension, in which the public and the community become an active part of the events that take place. We hope that the next editions will reinforce this idea, and that they will also benefit from the public and private support of the brands.

Textiles are part of human consciousness and allow, as a means of survival, to evolve in society. Its social significance involves observing and observing oneself, placing its function as a measuring tool.

You own your own carpet brand. From what you say, I imagine that the path to entrepreneurship within the textile industry is very difficult.

Exactly. In the 70s and 80s, Chile had a lot of raw materials; There were textile factories, shoes, clothing and fabrics were produced for export. But during the dictatorship, these companies began to disappear and these companies went bankrupt, were expropriated or closed. It is now increasingly difficult to find quality raw materials. For example, when I was making clothes, I had to import textiles from Peru. Chile has a very strong commercial culture, so it is difficult for people to shop where the national products are. There’s a lot of talent, the design quality is very good, but it’s difficult, although I think progress is slow.

What progress do you see?

I would dare to say that since the pandemic, textile entrepreneurship has progressed. Somehow people realized the importance of what is handmade, what is local, how much time it takes to make things. Textile has this particularity: it takes time. It is a profession that is not automatic, because it involves many processes and requires time and dedication from the designers or artists who develop this language.

Did you feel like being a woman made the path to starting a business even more difficult?

No, I don’t believe that entrepreneurship in the textile world is influenced by your gender, although clearly, being a woman you are generally at a disadvantage. One of the characteristics of the textile world is that it is rather feminine and this, in a sexist system, has caused it to be cataloged as something that is not important and that is generally understood from ‘a hobby logic, while that may be the case. case, but it is also much more. The layers that can be found in the different uses of this language can be understood personally and, at the same time, collectively. Textiles are part of human consciousness and allow, as a means of survival, to evolve in society. Its social significance involves observing and observing oneself, placing its function as a measuring tool. Textiles are power, they are words. It is a complex and rich language which, throughout history, has shown its capacity for evolution and change. It is a common code of representation and a universal means of communication. The textile is symbolic. Textile is beauty.

Coming back to the Biennale, why is this project so important?

Because we take on the large exhibition debt that exists around contemporary textile art, but also because we decided that the Biennale would be for everyone, that everyone would understand our curatorial proposal. For centuries, textile art has been one of the most powerful tools for storytelling and inhabits various spaces of our lives. In everyday life, it is present in our memory and our memories, it is what allows us to communicate; In doing so, it is a fundamental part of ritual and craft, allowing us to express our creativity, sensitivity and vision. Part of the beauty of this language is that textiles are something that everyone understands, a technique that everyone can relate to. All our grandmothers made something from textiles and it is present in our homes. Many people do not dare to enter museums because they believe that they will not understand anything. At the Biennale, you will understand everything.