Maria Fernanda Paes de Barros
São Paulo, March 31st, 2020.
“Life is an eternal challenge.
Through Yankatu I come into contact with realities very different from mine, whether related to culture, social and economic conditions, beliefs, the chances of being able to finish school, other ways of acquiring knowledge, how to deal with the disease and death, since the best hospital, or any knowledge of medicine, is sometimes impossible.
I learned a lot and I learn a little more each day, each new contact, each new immersion. I also learned to respect time, mine, the other's and nature's. Not to spend my days trying to overcome it, but to learn to live it, in the present, which is when it happens, while thinking about the future, where lies what we plan to achieve.
Today, with everything that is happening in the world, this learning has helped me a lot to rewrite my story once again. Reinforce my values and go beyond, employ them, transform them into tools to effectively build a better world than there was before, more human, with more soul.
As a designer who develops projects with artisans, I understand that my role is to continue moving forward and together with them to seek new ways of adaptation and transformation without losing our essence and without leaving our traditions behind.
I am in full development of the new collection with the Mehinako indigenous people, in the Upper Xingu, Mato Grosso, Brazil. Without being able to spend time with them in their village, I’m trying to keep us together. Raw materials were collected by them and sent to Brasilia, where a botanic researcher will extract the pigments that will dye the threads we will use to weave mats and other creations. When the threads are ready, we will communicate through videos sent by WhatsApp and they will teach me their weaving technique. They will make their beautiful wefts in the village with the buriti thread and I’ll do it here with wooden strips, so that in the after all we can unite our works in one, even more beautiful and original than before.
This exchange is different, but it also enriches, strengthens bonds, reinforces the importance of the knowledge they have. It also shows that it is possible to find solutions, make the entry of money into the communities feasible and maintain the hope that all this will pass and that we have the opportunity to write a new end to our stories, together.”
web: Yankatu