Sabremos bordar(*) is a graduate degree thesis on Textile Design that, as the name evokes, tries to combine, by means of this discipline –Design–, two themes: hand embroidery and national identity.
At the beginning of the project, we devoted ourselves to study and practise hand embroidery, as well as its different techniques and possible combinations. Through various methods, we determined that hand embroidery is falling into disuse. This trend, which is motivated by several factors, is not limited only to hand embroidery, but also to many traditional techniques. Due to this “situational diagnosis”, our proposal was led to the examination and research on how Design can give worth, again, to hand embroidery, and, at the same time, can give warmth, empathy and value to the textile as a means of ornamentation. We thus support the trend, seen on several Design projects, to retake and give worth to applying handmade or handcrafted traditional techniques.
Identifying embroidery as a possible communicational resource led our research towards the study of how to delimit some features of a current national identity. Taking into account our values and idiosyncrasies, we examined how to apply some of these features to Design, in order to make a hybridisation between innovation and tradition.
This thesis hopes to promote the application and development of hand embroidery by innovating on the Design of the pieces. The key is accomplishing a hybridisation between the Design and embroidery, on the one hand, and projects that highlight
characteristic features of the national identity on the other.
(*)An adaptation on a wellknown verse of the Uruguayan national anthem, “sabremos cumplir”, which is combined with the theme studied –embroidery–. “Sabremos bordar” can be literally translated into “we will know how to embroider”; yet, it would lose the explicit reference to the Uruguayan anthem.
Designs & Embroideries: Stefania Assandri & Santiago Celio
Visual identity: Eduardo Sganga
Photography: Gastón Gadda
Abstract translation: T.P. Verónica Martínez
