Weaving with the territory: explorations with plant fibers at ESDAPC

During a morning session led by the artist Ona Trepat, third-year students of the Bachelor’s Degree in Interior Design and Graphic Design at the ESDAPC Olot campus explored the expressive possibilities of soft plant fibers through manual work, experimentation, and attentive listening to the material.

The practice focused on the ancestral gesture of braiding, understood not only as a technique but as a way of thinking and relating to the world. Each student created a braid using rye straw grown in Serinyà by the artist herself, resulting in a collective piece that speaks of process, shared time, and connection with the territory.

The resulting work is thus constructed as a sum of individual gestures that become a common structure. Moving away from a productive logic, the workshop emphasized manual making as a space for learning, but also as a form of knowledge that integrates body, matter, and intuition.

Ona Trepat, an artist, educator, and researcher in traditional arts and crafts, develops a practice that combines sculpture, installation, and participatory processes based on working with plant fibers. Her work is articulated through an intimate relationship with natural materials and explores the interdependence between culture and nature through techniques such as weaving or basketry. This approach is often deployed in educational and community contexts, where the creative process also becomes a tool for collective reflection.

In this context, the workshop was conceived as a shared experience between material, gesture, and learning, connecting contemporary practice with artisanal knowledge and ways of doing rooted in the territory. A proposal that expands the boundaries of design to place it in dialogue with ecology, craftsmanship, and collaborative practices.