A: I.pron. clí. Prefijo de tercera persona. Third person conjugation

Boi: s. Manta (vestido prehispánico). Plaid (pre-Hispanic “dress”) A boi: his or her

A boi it means her or his plaid in Muisca language. This was the language spoken by the people in the region around Bogotá before and after colonial times, now not anymore. Back then, textiles were very precious craft. The Indigenous used it as barter; they had the same value as gold. The storytelling tradition of this region recounts that it was Bochica, the main god of the Muisca people, who taught them to spin and weave plaids.

I started this textile collaboration with William some years ago, he is an extremely talented handicraft artisan from a small town near Bogotá in the altiplano cundiboyasense of Colombia: Cucunubá, Cundinamarca. There he has a studio. This town owns a long lasting tradition of textile making. Together with William we sit down by the loom and experiment with the traditional elements that constitute the textile iconography of this place since pre-colonial times. We basically weave together, for days. We meet to exchange know-how and share different perspectives on how craft and contemporary design may intersect. We look together at the traditional iconography and weaving structures of his region, and we twist and reinterpret these graphic symbols to create a new perception of them and how we interpret them.

For me it’s extremely important to have a clear, close and fair working relationship with William, with a lot of respect for each other ́s knowledge and opinions. We both settle our conditions in a non-hierarchic and horizontal way.