The Project

In the rural Lake Atitlán region of Guatemala, artisanal textile production continues to be a significant part of indigenous Maya cultural heritage and the creative economy. As an area heavily dependent on tourism, the coronavirus pandemic adversely impacted craft production and threatened the livelihoods of many artisans.  This project, supported by the Global Challenges Research Fund, charts how artisan groups successfully diversified their textile and entrepreneurial practices to sustain their communities during the Covid-19 crisis.

Made possible through remote collaboration with five socially driven textile organisations – A Rum Fellow, Cojolya, Kakaw Designs, Mercado Global and Multicolores – our ethnographic enquiry, the resultant case studies and documentary film reveal how the artisans and their partner organisations responded to the restrictions of the Covid lockdown(s), highlighting the resilience and resourcefulness of the artisans and their partners as well as considering the potential long-term effects of the pandemic on the artisan sector.

The project is part of ongoing research into the sustainable development of Guatemalan craft textiles and the potential for integrating digital technologies into artisanal business models, initiated by the researchers – Professor Katherine Townsend (Nottingham Trent University), Dr Anna Piper (Sheffield Hallam University) and Luciana Jabur (Friends of Ixchel Museum) – and The Ixchel Museum of Indigenous Clothing and Textiles in 2018.

Through Textile Traditions | Future Fabrications, we share our research so far – our outputs and activities – and showcase the work of our collaborators and the textile artisans of Guatemala.