Sagarminaga Atelier ventures into the fields of art and design with three-dimensional artefacts made from natural fibres.

Did the basket precede the spear among our earliest tools? This is what the American writer Ursula K. Le Guin suggests in her Bag Theory of Fiction. Le Guin in her Bag Theory of Fiction, emphasising how different our stories would have been if we had focused on the vessel that helped us collect things because they were edible or simply beautiful.

Our view of prehistoric times may be wrong; it lacks the tremendous inventory of objects woven from plant fibres that left little trace compared to flint, axes and arrowheads. Just as we braided hair, we have intertwined vines and flexible branches; we have spent time with them and they have provided us with reed mats and willow bark baskets, fish traps and mesh bags.

On the basis of a craft that goes beyond the mere name of craftsmanship, Sagarminaga Atelier ventures into the fields of art and design to present her modern three-dimensional artefacts. The strength of Gabriela Sagarminaga ‘s work lies not in nostalgia for a past craft or in the pastoral appeal of the handmade, but in the technique itself, reduced to its simplest and most powerful expression.

When our gaze lingers on his creations, we are exposed to an achievement that is both simple and primordial: that of bending the material while maintaining this delicate tension. Once down, once up: a principle that can be repeated indefinitely to achieve strong and surprisingly complex surfaces.

This lattice structure reveals in a somewhat crude way how textiles would feel if we were to look at them with a magnifying glass: an architecture of stacked and interconnected fibres following our every gesture.

Sagarminaga Atelier also demonstrates a technical philosophy that takes full advantage of the potential offered by 3D software and modern means of production to make a natural material, with its inherent restrictions, embrace the artist’s vision.

Esparto grass, the material used. The esparto grass reflects the scale of our fingers; it evokes the work of hands braiding the tall grasses of nature, bending a stalk without breaking it, transforming that twisting into connected lines and planes. Like a coiled spring, like a taut muscle, the woven object is composed of innumerable immobilised twists and tensions, counterbalanced by the overall structure. Immobilised without nullifying their power, these tightly woven, knotted and knitted forms evoke and interrogate the notion of harmony, suspended in space. By exploring these principles through elementary forms, whose design invites the viewer to become an apprentice once again, Gabriella Sagarminaga presents her vocabulary of creation.

The collection

Gear. With its concentric shapes, evoking an eye, a wheel or circles in water, Gear almost invites touch by presenting a knotty texture, reinforced with all its natural roughness. By introducing the technique of basketry into the realm of the work of art, the eye transmits to the brain something akin to the tangible.

The Bubbles, moving away from the realm of practical objects, captures the fragility and strength of a cloud of soap bubbles. As time seems to stand still, it presents the viewer with a labyrinth of lines of force and centres of gravity, a freeze-frame that has become a landscape of its own.

Erosioned Column. Taking the form of a pillar, this work of art embodies the same principle of torsion that the esparto grass weavers apply in miniature to each fibre. It twists but holds firm, reminding us of the dialogue that each curve secretly maintains with gravity.

Stool. Standing on the threshold between art object and design furniture, the tassels of this stool, known as the little monster, evoke the groves of tall grass from which esparto grass, the natural and resistant fibre used by weavers to make espadrilles and baskets, is extracted. Overflowing with potential from every angle, captured in the midst of the creative process, it occupies a space between the mane of an animal and the work in progress.

Other parts

Gabriela Sagarminaga

She studied Styling and Fashion Coordination at IED, Fashion Design Styling at Central Saint Martins in London and a Master in Marketing Management at ESIC.

She created a research project on the relationship between different craft techniques and the territory, which she developed at Medialab Prado in Madrid. This residency allowed him to carry out in-depth research on esparto grass in order to understand its significance for Spanish culture and how it is positioned in the economic and cultural market.

In 2017, Gabriela de Sagarminaga created Sagarminaga Atelier, a craft studio and workshop that was born from an illusion: to take up an ancestral tradition, that of the artisanal work of vegetable fibres, to design and produce exclusive and timeless pieces, and to create spaces with a great expressive value.

“I decided to return to Bilbao to set up my own firm and continue researching esparto grass craftsmanship and traditional production techniques, and to find my own language and explore my abilities and my references so that I could create my own models. I then began to design products with the aim that they should have something behind them, that they should tell their own story and not just serve as decorative objects. That’s when Sagarminaga Aterlierwas born” says Gabriela.

Her creativity and curiosity converge in her pieces and projects, where concepts such as tradition, innovation and respect for techniques and raw materials acquire special relevance. Her experience in the fashion and design sectors, and her career as a researcher in social innovation, also give her work a particular sensitivity to the human scale, the search for beauty, aesthetics and sustainable development.

Text: Sagarminaga Atelier.

Project by Gabriela Sagarminaga