Hand-Woven Plant-Fibre Rug from Tavira

A Mat made purely from a single plant.

There was a time when farmers were the creators of some of their own tools. In Tavira (Algarve, Portugal), that wasn't so long ago.
They might not have had to make the shovel or the sickle, granted, but what good are those tools if you don't have the baskets to carry the abundant harvest? That's what we learned: fifty years ago, it was still common for local farmers to build their own palm baskets to collect potatoes and carob.

Thanks to AECT (Associação Em Contacto Tavira) - an association that promotes active aging and combats the isolation and exclusion of the elderly population - we found extraordinary products that descend from this tradition.

The Mat (Tapete) is currently made by women between 70 and 80 years old, who weave only one plant called palmeira (dwarf palm), which grows in the same abandoned fields of their youth.

And do you know what? Besides weaving, some of these artisans still work in the fields every day. In their faces, their hands, and their stories, we found a tapestry of time and strength.

Ra-Ro Index: Rare › learn more