The textile art of Oaxaca continues to project itself as a living expression of identity and cultural resistance. In this context, the Muxe artist Xaneri Merino Damián, originally from San Pedro Jicayán, will lead the workshop “Weaving Stories That Are Life” at the National Museum of Art (MUNAL), as part of the public program linked to the exhibition “Disputing the Gaze: Visual Imaginaries of Indigenous Women.”
The workshop, aimed at trans, non-binary, and gender and sexual minorities from Mexico City and the State of Mexico, offers a space for collective learning about the backstrap loom, an ancestral technique deeply rooted in Indigenous communities of Oaxaca.
Over six sessions, participants will learn about the worldview of the traditional loom, its structure and body postures, as well as the warp-weaving technique characteristic of San Pedro Jicayán, one of the representative textile traditions of the Ñuu Savi (Mixtec) people.
The workshop offers a space for collective learning about the backstrap loom.
For the artist, weaving is more than a craft: it is a form of memory, identity, and community dialogue. Her learning stems from her family, especially from the heritage passed down by her maternal grandmother, knowledge that she now reinterprets from a contemporary perspective that links tradition, art, and inclusion.
Through this workshop, the backstrap loom is presented not as a practice of the past, but as a living language that continues to build community and new narratives about identity and diversity, bringing the cultural richness of Oaxaca to national spaces of artistic reflection.
The workshop will take place from April 14 to 19 at the MUNAL (National Museum of Art), with free admission upon prior registration.
Source: imparcialoaxaca
