Visiting the Artisans: The Wounaan Werregue Weavers

Championing artisans and ancestral techniques is at the heart of our mission - our raison d'etre. And perhaps there is no technique worth championing more than - Werregue Weaving. Appreciated by connoisseurs but largely unknown - this ancestral weaving craft is unique in its intricacy and refinement - the weave so tight that these palm-based vessels can hold water. 

Read here about the origins and history of this ancestral technique and  communities  Werregue Weavers. 

Werregue weaving is an ancestral art practiced by the Wounaan and Emberá people. These indigenous communities hail from El Chocó, a rain forest region on the Colombian Pacific coast. Wedged between Colombia and Panama - the region that has been severely affected by the armed conflict in Colombia, forcibly displacing many of its indigenous people. Displaced from their ancestral lands, a small community of Wounaan currently lives near Bogota. Many maintain their traditional craft, weaving their wares for local fairs and markets. At CasaLatina we have been working closely with this community of Werregue weavers - curating their traditional pieces and collaborating on developing new ideas to use this intricate weaving technique in other products. Puli, CasaLatina’s head of Production in Colombia, recently had the pleasure to meet the Werregue Weavers at their workshop. Here are their stories. 

At CasaLatina we have established a close collaborative relationship with this community of traditional Werregue Weavers. We are very proud to give this ancestral art and its creators the platform it deserves, celebrating Colombia’s hard working, beautiful, innovative and creative people.