Away Pacha: Weaving Andean Thinking
Away Pacha is a textile project developed by Sofia Hott, a Chilean textile artist and designer whose work explores the intersections between craftsmanship, design, and cultural sustainability. With over a decade of experience researching rural textile traditions and collaborating with women’s artisan communities across South America, her practice is deeply rooted in Andean heritage.
Wari-Tiwanaku Four-Pointed Hat, 600-1100 AD South coast of Peru, Camelid and plant fibres. Photo courtesy of the Chilean Museum of Pre-Columbian Art.
Inspired by the ceremonial headwear found in the collection of the Chilean Museum of Pre-Columbian Art, she draws on the sacred and symbolic role of pre-Columbian hats and helmets - objects once used to cover not only the head but also the thoughts and memories of Andean ancestors. Hott translates their form, texture, and meaning into a series of contemporary woven textiles.
Each piece in the collection transforms the volumetric complexity of the original objects into flat, tactile surfaces, woven on four-shaft looms. These textiles are envisioned as personal rugs - woven spaces meant to be inhabited physically and mentally, offering a tangible link between past and present.
Piece No. 4: 'Contactos' on the loom. Inspired by Arica Inca truncated cone-shaped cap
1400-1532 AD Northern Chile Camelid and plant fibres.
The project takes its name from the Quechua phrase Away Pacha, which means “to weave the space-time.” This concept is central to Hott’s practice. Through it, she honours ancestral Andean worldviews and promotes reflection on their enduring legacies. The installation proposes a space where weaving becomes a way to remember, to honour, and to actively continue the thought processes of Andean cultures.
All materials used in Away Pacha are sourced from sustainable and local initiatives, continuing the tradition of natural fibres and craft techniques that have shaped Andean textile history for centuries. Every collaboration was selected with cultural sustainability and fair trade in mind.
Portrait of Sophia Hott at the loom. Photo by Chris Chierego.
Among them is Warmi Hilados, a project led by Carol Boicier in Colchane, Chile, where alpaca yarns are produced collectively by Aymara families of the Isluga community. Another is Studio Sanne Visser, a London-based design studio pioneering the development of sustainable yarns made from recycled human hair.
Sofia Hott herself contributes to this innovative practice by using her own hair, as well as recycled strands, in her weavings. This gesture - rooted in pre-Columbian funerary and sacred traditions - invites deeper reflection on the symbolic power of materials and the ways they carry life, memory, and ritual through time.
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Further Information:
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Image Credits:
LEAD: Piece No. 2: Away Allpaqa, inspired by the Pica-Tarapacá Helmet Cap, 900-1470 AD Northern Chile. Camelid and plant fibers. Sophia Hott.
All photography and video: Chris Chierego.