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Cuiba artisan making loader by using moriche leaves. ©

British Council

Women weave handicrafts such as backpacks, hammocks, baskets or baby carriers. Similarly, men engage in other crafts such as woodwork, to produce arrows, bows and boats for sale.

Craftswomen use fibres and vegetal bark to make hammocks, bracelets and headbands for ceremonial rituals. They also produce baskets for everyday and ritual uses. 

In partnership with the Cuiba people in the Mochuelo community, a series of workshops have been organized with the purpose of recovering and fostering traditional jobs and cultural points of reference, collective work, and the design of new products, while preserving the cultural heritage of their crafts.

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Fibre balls with different natural dyes. ©

British Council

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Cuiba traditional weave. ©

British Council

cuiba-crafts-british-council
Cuiba bag woven with fibre of moriche (palm) and natural dyes. ©

British Council

cuiba-crafts-british-council
Basket woven with fibre of moriche (palm) and natural dyes. ©

British Council

cuiba-crafts-british-council
Cuiba bag woven with moriche fibre (palm) and natural dyes. ©

British Council

Weaving workshops

The main goal is to create a space for experimentation and innovation in crafts based on the community's cultural references, through design workshops that result in innovative prototypes.

Dyeing workshop

The goal is to cover in detail this part of the crafts production chain, as well as to promote and start the work of recovering natural dyes from the area.

Creativity and experimentation workshops

The main goal is to carry out concrete exercises to gain inspiration from cultural references, mixing technical potential, key issues in local research and community cultural values, and the underlying potential of their current range of products, in order to obtain prototypes that could generate new lines of products for each group of artisans.