Chocolate Textil
in Nachig, Zinacantán
Chiapas
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This collaboration is about translating the art of indigenous people native to the land where cacao originated.
The edible bars become a medium for their textile designs with the goal of resulting in a financially and ecologically sustainable business to serve as a long-term asset for the artisans involved.
Textil Zinacantán a group of women embroidery artists and backstrap loom weavers from the indigenous town of Nachig in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. They speak Tzotzil (a Mayan language). The ladies that founded Textil Zinacantán are eager to make and sell chocolate since their textiles take months to complete. They need secondary forms of income. In pre-Columbian times Zinacantecans exchanged their products with Aztec traders (by the 19th century cacao, tobacco, and coffee). Cacao doesn’t grow in Zinacantán but is abundant in the state of Chiapas and their ancestors traded it. |
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I went to the highlands of Chiapas and provided a group of women textile artisans with equipment, molds, and supplies for making chocolate. I taught them methods for tempering chocolate, molding bars, and helped them to create a marketable product with shelf ready packaging.
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They now wholesale their textile chocolate bars to shops in San Cristobal de Las Casas, a nearby town and tourist destination. I hope to ignite change and empower artisans to develop innovative work while preserving their cultures. I honor cultural legacies and future possibilities, understanding them as a continuum and not as a contradiction.
Though cacao does not grow in Zinacantán, people of this region have traded cacao for centuries. Cacao is an integral part of the culture in the highlands of Chiapas.
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The Mexican cacao industry faces a production crisis. Today, 70% of the cacao consumed in Mexico is imported. During the last decade, there has been a 44% decrease in cacao production, which has caused deforestation in Tabasco and Chiapas. The remaining cacao sites at risk of deforestation are rainforests that are rich with biological diversity. It would be a real shame to lose the ancient tradition of cacao cultivation in the land where it is native.
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