De La Warr Pavilion Presents Tayhin by Claudia Alarcón and Silät
The striking modernist lines of the De La Warr Pavilion offer an unexpected setting for Tayhin, the first institutional solo exhibition by Silät, a collective of Indigenous Wichí women weavers from northern Argentina. On view from 14 June to 14 September 2025, the show is led by artist and community organiser Claudia Alarcón, a weaver from La Puntana in Salta province, whose work brings ancestral textile practices into dialogue with the wider world.
Claudia Alarcón & Silät: Tayhin, 2025, Installation View, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-On-Sea. Photography: Rob Harris.
Alarcón has become a vital voice in Argentina’s contemporary art scene, yet her work remains rooted in traditional ways of making. She was the first Indigenous woman to win Argentina’s National Salon of Visual Arts in 2022, and her chaguar textiles now appear in collections from São Paulo to Denver. Her participation in the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024 marked a turning point, not only for her career, but for broader recognition of Wichí textile traditions. But beyond awards and exhibitions, her practice centres on preserving knowledge, honouring elders, and working collectively.
Claudia Alarcón & Silät - Honatsi [La noche / The night], 2023. Hand-spun chaguar fibre, natural dyes and aniline dyes, woven fabric, "yica" stitch. Woven by Rosilda López, Claudia Alarcón.
Formed in 2023, Silät - meaning “information” or “alert” in Wichí - brings together more than 100 women across generations from the Alto la Sierra and La Puntana communities. The collective grew from the wider Thañí/Viene del monte project, which supports the revival of Indigenous textile knowledge across the Salta region. The exhibition’s title, Tayhin, is a Wichí word for weaving that suggests more than fabric-making - it implies building, repairing, and healing.
The weavers use fibres from the native chaguar plant, harvesting, peeling, soaking, spinning, and dyeing it using natural pigments from roots, bark, and seeds. The resulting yarn is strong, lightweight, and richly textured. The designs (footprints, birds, feline eyes, and landscapes) carry personal and spiritual meaning, acting as symbols in a visual language that conveys stories, dreams, and messages.
Claudia Alarcón & Silät, ‘Nuestros tejidos son nuestra alegría [Our weavings are our happiness]’, woven by Rosilda López, 2024. Courtesy of the artists and Cecilia Brunson Projects. Photography by Eva Herzog.
Weaving is often a group effort. Some of the larger works require up to seven women working side by side, their gestures practiced and rhythmic. Their textiles are suspended from freestanding wooden frames that echo the posts and branches used in the forest to stretch finished cloth - offering a quiet connection between gallery and land.
What stands out most in Tayhin is its refusal to treat these works as artefacts. They are not presented as relics of a fading culture but as bold, living expressions of resistance, survival, and creativity. As Alarcón says: “We are still here, part of this land, alive and resisting. We continue to weave for our ancestors - and for who we want to become.”
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Further Information:
Claudia Alarcón & Silät: Tayhin is on view now at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on sea, East Sussex.
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Lead Image: Claudia Alarcón & Silät. Inawop (La primavera / Spring) (Detail), 2023. Hand-spun chaguar fibre, natural dyes and aniline dyes, woven fabric, "yica" stitch. Woven by Mariela Pérez, Fermina Pérez, Francisca Pérez. Comunidad La Puntana, Santa Victoria Este, Salta.