London Craft Week: Weaving as Structure in the Work of Manuel López

The starting point for Manuel López’s recent work is a series of moves: Mexico City to London, then on to the United States. At London Craft Week, those shifts are translated into woven structures that hold both clarity and disruption. Presented as part of Future Icons Selects, López’s practice spans rug-making, tapestry and double-cloth construction. Weaving operates as both method and framework, shaped by migration and urban experience, and resolved into compositions defined by restraint, geometry and layered form.

Inspiration and ideation for Threads of Departure, Manuel Lopez.

At the centre is Threads of Departure, a body of work reflecting on migration, memory and the emotional capacity of textiles. The project began in 2020, when López moved from Mexico City to London to pursue an MFA during the pandemic. That period shaped a hands-on approach to making, focused on how textiles might foster emotional connection and long-term attachment. His response has been to explore empathy through abstracted urban landscapes, drawing on environments that quietly witness daily life. In 2024, a further move to the United States brought weaving to the centre of his daily practice. Working on a Glimåkra countermarch loom, López returned to the fundamentals of the discipline: tension, density, structure and material behaviour, where time at the loom became both routine and reflection, allowing ideas to emerge through the act of making...

(...)

Want to read more of this article?
We are proud to be a subscriber-funded publication with members in 185 countries. We know our readership is passionate about textiles, so we invite you to help us preserve and promote the stories, memories, and histories that fabric holds. Your support allows us to publish our magazine, and also ‘what's on’ information, and subscription interviews, reviews, and long-read articles in our online blog. 

ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER? CLICK HERE TO ACCESS CONTENT

Or, to continue reading….


Magazine subscribers automatically get free access to all our online content. We send the access code by email with the publication of each issue. You will also find it on the envelope containing your magazine. Please note the access code changes every issue.

...

Image Credits:

Lead: Threads of Departure, handwoven by Manuel Lopez.

All further images as credited in captions and courtesy of the artist, Manuel Lopez.