A rectangle of cardboard on a stick is among the most disposable objects at any demonstration, yet this October at Frieze London a version of it will hang on a gallery wall, woven by hand from the fibres of a wild forest plant. The makers are Silät, a collective of Wichí women from northern Argentina, and their new tapestries take the shape of the placards carried during protests for Indigenous land rights in the region.
Cecilia Brunson Projects shows them alongside new paintings by Jun Martínez and historic works by Dignora Pastorello, at Frieze London from 15 to 18 October, with a VIP preview on Wednesday 14 October. Gallery founder Cecilia Brunson grew up in Chile under dictatorship and built the booth around artists who found ways to speak under pressure. Silät’s weavers take that idea literally, since each placard is a statement made in fibre.
Above: The Chaguar plant being processed and woven by Silät. Courtesy of Claudia Alarcon. Below: Silät & Claudia Alarcón, Los ojos y las sombras, The Eyes and the Shadows [Tatey hupelche'pe], 2026. Photo: Cecilia Brunson Projects.
That statement begins in the forest. Chaguar is a spiky plant of the Gran Chaco, where the borders of three countries blur, and Wichí women harvest its leaves, then peel and spin the fibres by hand before a single stitch is made. The yica stitch and ancient looping methods, passed down through generations, shape geometric patterns that follow the rhythms of the forest. Anyone who has wrestled a drop spindle into submission will appreciate the patience, here shared across around a hundred makers.
Silät means “announcement” in Wichí, a fitting name for a group founded in 2023 and led by artist and activist Claudia Alarcón. Once billed as Claudia Alarcón & Silät, the collective now follows a community model, with sales benefiting the whole group and Western ideas of the lone author set politely aside. Solo shows at MASP in Brazil and the De La Warr Pavilion in the UK confirm the interest.
Jun Martínez, On disturbed land and abandoned pastures (Roble Blanco del Caribe) I-III, 2026. Photo: Cecilia Brunson Projects.
Jun Martínez, a Puerto Rican artist and Royal College of Art graduate, paints from direct encounters with the environment, turning them into immersive compositions that drift between landscape and abstraction. The centrepiece of the booth is his pentaptych of the roble blanco, a Puerto Rican native with a spectacular pink and white flowering canopy and a gift for reforesting itself. Martínez sets that fragile beauty against the pressures on the Caribbean’s ecosystems, making the tree a living archive and an emblem of renewal. On an island shaped by its relationship with the United States, that landscape becomes a place where colonial histories are remembered and reclaimed.
Left: Silät, La continuidad y los nuevos gestos [Tujlhache ta nech'ehiche], 2026. Right: Dignora Pastorello Argentine, 1913-2001. Escalera al campanario [Stairway to the bell tower].
Pastorello (1913 to 2001) was a pioneering figure in post-war Argentinian painting and the only woman in Grupo Cinco. Her intimate worlds, rendered with flattened perspective, belong to a wider generation of artists who developed coded forms of expression in response to the dictatorship. Hung beside the chaguar tapestries, her paintings extend a conversation about speaking indirectly, whether in paint or in thread. Together, the practices on the booth turn our attention to the histories embedded in materials, and to the communities and marginalised landscapes that continue to shape, and complicate, the story of art.
. . .
Further Information:
Cecilia Bronson Projects at Frieze London is open to the public from 15 to 18 October 2026.
View our exclusive interview with Claudia Alarcón HERE.
Read about Silät in Selvedge Issue 126, Deco
Discover Silät handwoven bags in the Selvedge Artisan Goods Shop
. . .
Image Credits:
Lead: Silät (detail), La continuidad y los nuevos gestos [Tujlhache ta nech'ehiche], 2026.
All further images as credited in captions.