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Title of the submitted project/idea
Co-Obradoiro Galego
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Title of the submitted project/idea (English)
Collaborative Galician Creation Space
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URL of a video introducing the submitted project or idea (5 minutes or less)
https://youtu.be/89QPu0CJqF8
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Brief concept description of the submitted project/idea
Co-Obradoiro Galego or “Collaborative Galician Creation Space” is a collaborative project between three basketmakers and a biodesigner looking at biotechniques to help regenerate and revive our Galician craft heritage.
The decline of the Galician basketry craft has worsened in recent years, due to the manufacturing of fishing tools moving away from traditional fishing crafts. Fishing tools that, in their origin, were made by local basket makers with wicker or wood but today are made mainly from plastic by large foreign industries. Specifically, this situation has intensified because of the reforestation of non-autochthonous species whose wood cannot be used for basketry, and the disappearance of rural life.
Consequently, our objective is to produce a flexible and biodegradable biomaterial that can take shape by local basketmakers. Chitosan is an organic and non-toxic biopolymer that when degraded in soil, acts as a fertilizer and fungicides and helps nutrients absorption. Through using a lactic acid fermentation process - that requires a whey solution from the seafood shells - it is possible to obtain their natural pigments and their chitosan.
The biomaterial takes form thanks to an extrusion biotechnique, generating zero waste and encouraging the development of techniques relevant for a contemporary lifestyle. We are using traditional hand weaving crafts with vegetable fibers are applied simultaneously alongside new extrusion biotechniques. In this way, we are challenging techniques and crafts producing a regional design at the level of our time, relating the local with the global, establishing links between culture and community.
While the design outcomes aim to reinterpret existing components present in the Galician culture. First, a well-known Galician symbol, the scallop shell, translated into a basketry weaving technique, weaving the biomaterial from the king and ox crab. Second, a wooden fishing trap skeleton with a visible net in the extruded biomaterial. Thirdly, a reinterpretation of a typical Galician basket for carrying fish on the head, called patella, mixed with the traditional Galician hat, again, weaving the biomaterial from the king and ox crab. Finally, a design that celebrates basketry as the first craft because of its original use as a method of food preservation applying the biomaterial in a flat extrusion process.
Lastly, Co-Obradoiro Galego is a project based on a local community that uses crafts to show a specific language from the Galician culture, while bio-techniques as a tool that speaks about history, tradition, and culture applying a closed-loop system. -
Brief concept description of the submitted project/idea (English)
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Detailed description of the submitted project/idea
Co-Obradoiro Galego is a project born during the lockdown in Galicia (Spain) when pandemic called me to have a more local approach. I started observing and understanding the environment and its problems from a scientific point of view looking for an alternative to become waste a valuable resource with a positive impact on our ecosystem. And Co-Obradoiro Galego proposes a way to remove crustaceans waste from our environment that has a high impact on human and non-humans species, as well, in the Galician economy. At the same time, in collaboration with the basketmakers, we are telling trought the collection of the weaving pieces the deterioration of the Galician basketry craft due to our forests decline situation.
Moreover, the basketmakers have been involved in the project from the research until the design and execution stage. After developing the biomaterial, I began my basket journey learning and understanding from Carliños, Taboas, and Rubén the multiple techniques, forms, and materials that are part of the Galician basketry while they experimented with the biomaterial properties applying basketry techniques.
This project is based on a holistic approach establishing collaboration, cooperation, and qualitative design for and with multiple species between humans - basketmakers and designers, designers and scientists - and no humans - waste from the seafood industry. But also, at the same time, we are implementing ultra-local action research keeping in mind an ethical approach working with the Galician basketry community.
The work on one side has been received by the audience as work that visualizes the decline in biodiversity and craft traditions. And how as designers, we might be able to bridge these gaps. While on the other side, how a new material made from an unused product can address cultural and environmental regenerative design.
The further development for this project would lie on the material innovation side. Until now, additive manufacturing printing only offered solid results, although this project is introducing a flexible, elastic, and biodegradable material made from waste compatible with digital manufacturing.
We are proposing a new aesthetic that speaks about tradition and culture trought digital printing that offers solutions at the level of physical properties of vegetable fibers. We are introducing an “innovative weaving material” solution into a closed-loop system.
Features
Exhibitions:
Milan Design Week - Isola Design District 2021
London Design Festival - UAL X Super Nature - Climate Emergency Network, Material Heroes 2021
ICADE, Shenzen, 2021
Awards:
Finalist for the 2021 Fashion Crossover London Advertorial
Shortlisted MullenLowe NOVA Awards, 2021
Conferences:
Centre for Sustainable Fashion - UAL Big Welcome, 2021
Magazines:
FutureMaterialsBank, 2021
Creative Boom, 2021
BUSINESSMAYOR, 2021
Adforum, 2021
Campaignlive, 2021
FAD Magazine, 2021 -
Detailed description of the submitted project/idea (English)
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URL of your project / idea
https://graduateshowcase.arts.ac.uk/projects/216612/cover
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Co-Obradoiro Galego
Co-Obradoiro Galego is a collaborative project between three basketmakers and a biodesigner looking at biotechniques to help regenerate and revive our Galician craft heritage.
The Atlantic Ocean has supplied the Galician and Spanish populations throughout history resulting in 602 tonnes of seafood exoskeletons being wasted every year. Therefore, the objective of our project is to develop a flexible and biodegradable biomaterial from a biopolymer found in the seafood exoskeletons, chitosan.
With this biodegradable material, we re-connect again the seafood and basketry industry, send a message about the permanence of these precious Galician basketry techniques, Galician basketry weavers through a material that disappears but reactivates the Galician economy.
The Atlantic Ocean has supplied the Galician and Spanish populations throughout history resulting in 602 tonnes of seafood exoskeletons being wasted every year. Therefore, the objective of our project is to develop a flexible and biodegradable biomaterial from a biopolymer found in the seafood exoskeletons, chitosan.
With this biodegradable material, we re-connect again the seafood and basketry industry, send a message about the permanence of these precious Galician basketry techniques, Galician basketry weavers through a material that disappears but reactivates the Galician economy.
