Introducing Silät: Claudia Alarcón and the Wichí weavers of the Gran Chaco
In the forests of the Gran Chaco, where Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay blur into one another, a plant called chaguar grows wild. For generations, Wichí women have harvested its fibres — peeling, washing and spinning them by hand long before they ever become thread. This is where the story of Silät begins, and we’re thrilled to share it alongside a Five Minutes with a Friend interview with founder Claudia Alarcón as we welcome Silät to the Selvedge Artisan Goods shop.
Wichí weavers from the Gran Chaco
Founded in 2023 and led by the artist and activist Claudia Alarcón, Silät is a collective of nearly a hundred Wichí weavers based in Santa Victoria Este. The name means "announcement" in Wichí, and it's an apt one. Each piece the collective produces is a kind of statement: of presence, of continuity, of a community refusing to let its visual language fade.
Silät bags in production, from the harvesting of the chaguar, to the stitching of the bags structure.
What makes Silät's work so compelling is the layering of time within it. The yica stitch and ancient looping techniques used by these weavers have been passed down for generations, yet the patterns that emerge feel anything but fixed in the past. Geometric forms echo the rhythms of the forest itself, shaped by gestures so practised they've become instinct.
A selection of Silät bags available on the Selvedge Artisan Goods shop.
That sense of pattern and geometry has carried Silät's work far beyond the Gran Chaco. Their textiles have been shown in galleries and biennials worldwide, and have even entered into dialogue with one of the great names of European modernism, as Selvedge readers may recall from Issue 126. We'll return to that remarkable encounter shortly.
Silät, Tsinhay Lapakas (The Voices Of Women) Bag. Yica stitched with naturally dyed chaguar fibres.
For now, we're delighted to be stocking a small collection of Silät's hand woven bags, each one carrying the marks of the hands that made it: the particular tension of a stitch, the slight variation in dye, the trace of a technique that has survived against considerable odds.
Read our interview with founder Claudia Alarcón to find out more:
Five Minutes with a Friend
Portrait of founder Claudia Alarcón, founder of Silät. Photo:
by Atilio Orellana
Claudia, what is your earliest memory of a textile?
One of the memories I treasure most begins at the very start of the weaving process, when the threads are made. In our community, we work with chaguar fiber, a plant that belongs to the bromeliad family.
As a child, I would watch my grandmother pound the leaves she had just harvested in the monte. My aunts would also strip the long leaves, removing their thorns and revealing the fibre that would later become thread.
Even then, I would hear the women in my family telling me that I had to learn to work with chaguar, so that when I grew up I could pass this knowledge on to my daughters and granddaughters. That is how elders are, always talking about the future.
The first pattern I learned to weave was the turtle’s shell, made of small squares in two colours. I would say, “These little squares have nothing to do with a turtle’s shell.” But my family told me that I had to begin and keep practicing. It had to be done.
The first motifs one learns are the turtle’s shell, and then the carancho’s claws. Over time, I came to understand why the turtle’s shell is learned first: it is because a turtle’s shell is very hard. It is the first thing we must know, because we need that shell to protect what will be kept inside.
Then came the carancho’s claws. They are for holding on. By weaving them, you can always hold on to something that helps you keep going. It is as if you were weaving your own claws, the ones that will allow you to hold on to that knowledge.
How would you describe what draws you to textiles and the world of making?
My relationship to chaguar is one of wonder. I have always felt drawn to it. As a child, I would play with the leftover leaves, and its fragrance always seemed to carry messages. I would try to imagine how my grandmother had learned, and I would lose myself in the movements they made with the fibres. That always caught my attention.
I have always heard that we women came from the sky together with chaguar, descending to earth by means of a chaguar thread. I came to understand this over time: the idea that we women were once stars. Through weaving, I try to bring this story back to life.
A few years ago, I felt everything was changing. Something was shifting when we began to gather. It is strange to think about it now and ask myself, “How did I do that? Why?” But at that moment, everything encouraged me to create, to make my own weavings, and through making them I kept learning.
I started telling myself, “Alright, I know how to weave, but I still need a lot of practice.” Because even though you learn to weave as a child, if you leave it there, quiet and untouched, you begin to feel that what you know is not enough.
I thought, “Yes, I know how to weave, but I still have so much to learn. I need practice.”
And as I kept weaving and creating, something surprising happened. It was as if I already carried everything in my mind, and as I wove, it suddenly felt like I was looking at a screen. It was right there in my memory. It was already inside me. It was as though all of it was awakening.
Little by little it kept awakening, and it would not leave me. It felt like awakening to who you are. Perhaps you were already yourself before, but something was still missing.
Where do you feel most inspired to work?
While I’m weaving, I feel most inspired by listening to the birds sing and receiving their messages while sitting in the shade of the trees.
How could I not feel joy when I think of myself with my family gathered around the fire, weaving while we spend time together, with weaving always accompanying us?
I always keep in mind that I grew up watching the women of my community in moments like these, where they are always tayinen (weaving).
What has sparked your imagination or inspired you recently?
Since I began weaving larger pieces, pieces through which we found a stronger voice, my inspiration has grown by bringing back what had always been there, as if I were weaving it for the very first time.
The chaguar plant, in its generosity, taught me the most important lesson for life: how to adapt to change. So many things have changed. Today we experience many things that we could never have imagined before.
Through our weavings, we can tell many things: stories and legends that were once passed on orally and no longer are, because the elders of the community are no longer sitting by the fire telling those stories as they once did. Every child listened with such attention, with unforgettable smiles.
Being able to tell all of this through our weavings fills me with pride.
Resplandor del Sol (Ifwuala L’alh), 2022, Claudia Alarcón
What is your most treasured textile, and what story does it carry?
I believe my most cherished weaving is Resplandor del Sol (Ifwuala L’alh), because that is where everything began. It was there that we recovered an ancient stitch that had nearly disappeared, and it was also there that we, as women, began finding one another, working together, laughing together, listening to one another, and discovering what we are capable of when we are together.
Of course, nothing comes easily. Yet we never stop, even as we cross unfamiliar paths. Seeing our weavings travel far from home and witnessing what becomes possible because of it only encourages us even more.
I believe that all of this is my greatest work of art: bringing what is ancestral into the future.
Where did you first learn your craft, and who shaped your early approach to making?
I began weaving when I was twelve years old. In our culture, women learn to weave when they have their first menstruation; our mothers pass this responsibility on to us as a form of discipline. It has always been this way, and there are reasons for it.
I was taught to weave by my mother, Mirta López, my grandmothers Celestina Duarte and Tomasa Díaz, and my aunt, Mirta López. I have always woven what we call hilú in our language, and what is known in Spanish as yicas, as well as other containers such as purses and bags.
In our yicas, we have always woven the motifs taught by our mothers and grandmothers. We have always seen great beauty in them, and we have always known that they cannot disappear. People outside our community cannot see everything that we know is woven into them. We have suffered greatly from mistreatment and from being paid unfairly for our work.
One day, we began making larger weavings after an invitation from a woman who started working with us around 2016. At first, in our language, we called her Suluj (white woman): Andrei Fernández. Later, we began calling her Chisuk, rebellious woman.
She encouraged us to do things we had never done before, or even dreamed of doing. Those things have allowed our work to be valued and seen with respect in many places.
Is there a piece of music you return to while you work, that sets the rhythm of your making?
When I begin to weave, to create my weavings, I feel a music rising from deep within me, guiding each movement of my hands. I believe this is something every Wichí woman feels when she connects with her weaving and brings it into the present.
Claudia Alarcón & Silät, Nuestros tejidos son nuestra alegría (Our weavings are our happiness), 2024.
What material or technique are you currently experimenting with or curious to explore further?
I enjoy experimenting with my weavings. For example, I like discovering what can be done with plastic. It is totally different from chaguar fiber, but it is beautiful to see all the possibilities it has to offer. I also enjoy weaving with acrylic yarn, another material that comes from far away in bright colors. We like to use it and continue weaving the same motifs that have always been woven. Everything we have always done with the chaguar plant can now be done with other materials as well, and the images that emerge can be surprising.
I believe these changes allow what lives within our weavings to extend itself, to expand. What matters most is that if one day chaguar is no longer available, we Wichí women can continue weaving and teaching others to weave, without losing what we care for through weaving. It is already happening. We weave with different materials, with what arrives, with what can be found. We know how to do that.
I enjoy exploring new possibilities, but for now I am working with the chaguar plant, cutsaj. I work with those threads, especially through a particular language that allows me to work with and organize what we call the “ancient stitch.” At the same time, I always try to continue exploring with plastic.
I have also worked with fibers prepared by other weavers from other places, women who spin the wool of their sheep and the fiber of the llamas they care for. This allows me to explore, to have new experiences, and to see different results. They are like new paths that I travel through my work and my message.
I believe these explorations prepare us for what comes next, because we know that many things will become scarce in the future. Yet we trust that weaving will continue, and that through it we will continue finding one another. And so we will keep returning to that point of departure that encourages us to move forward.
If you could collaborate with any maker—past or present—who would it be, and why?
At this moment, I cannot choose one specific person to collaborate with. What I do know is that it would have to be someone who understands the value of weaving and respects everything that weaving requires: respecting the threads, knowing where the plant we work with comes from, understanding where I come from, and valuing our story and our struggles. Above all, it must be someone who values us and understands that we, my sisters and I, who are Silät, think together.
I would be moved by someone who approached us with a genuine interest in creating something new, even if they are not from my people. Someone who can truly see us, who can see the work we do and understand that this is not something that can be made from one day to the next. It takes a great deal of time, concentration, and countless hours to create.
Claudia Alarcón, Lomo de suri (ñandú) y presencias (Ostrich back pattern and presence), 2024.
What does a perfect day of making look like for you?
In everyday life in our community, any day can be a good day for weaving. Creating a special weaving requires a great deal of concentration, and every woman has her own responsibilities: her children and the duties at home. Today, women protect their time for weaving; they recognize that they need those hours in order to create.
We have managed to come together in groups. We work closely with one another and, little by little, along this long path, we have discovered ourselves as women. Threads are great advisors; each one shapes a woman in her decisions, such as standing by the works she feels called to weave.
A Wichí woman never finds a perfect day. Instead, every day holds its own best hours for weaving and creating: in the morning, during siesta, or in the afternoon. There is something very beautiful about that.
I believe this represents a change for women and our sisters. In the past, women were expected to cook and attend to all the tasks of the household, but today their partners show them greater respect. People even say, “I can’t ask her to do that, she’s weaving.” That respect is there now.
It has not been easy, but women are very happy to have lived through this important step that we took together. And so, we keep going.
Thank you, Claudia Alarcón, for sharing your work and inspirations on behalf of Silät.
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Further Information:
Find a range of Silät bags in the Selvedge Artisan Good Shop
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Image Credits:
Lead: Silät, Inawop (Spring) Bag. Yica stitched with naturally dyed chaguar fibres.
All further images as credited in captions.