Argentine artist Claudia Alarcón presents 'Claudia Alarcón & Silät: Viver Tecendo' at ART AFRICA, a body of work developed in close collaboration with the Silät collective, a group of over one hundred Wichí women weavers. The exhibition traces an evolving textile language rooted in the Gran Chaco region, where chaguar fiber, cosmology, and collective labor converge, moving between individual and shared authorship. Alarcón, a founder of Silät, describes how the group began organizing in 2017 to defend their weaving knowledge, using patterns that carry cultural meaning and creating larger pieces as a 'scream' to assert their presence and resistance against historical erasure by the nation-state.
This exhibition matters because it foregrounds Indigenous Wichí women's textile practice as a form of cultural continuity, resistance, and contemporary art, challenging colonial narratives and the erasure of Indigenous knowledge. By bringing ancestral techniques into dialogue with contemporary forms, Alarcón and Silät redefine authorship and collective creation, demonstrating how weaving can serve as a political and spiritual act. The work also highlights the ongoing struggles of Indigenous peoples in the Gran Chaco against dispossession and environmental destruction, making visible a living tradition that persists despite systemic oppression.