WE HAVE A SMALL FACTORY...
Quality hand labour is limited and growing is complex in a city with a strong focus on commodities and extraction industries. Pieces are very limited, handcrafted from end to end.
Over the years, this knowledge has been present in rural areas where agricultural activities and armed conflict replaced many of their handcrafted gestures. However, they have managed to adapt the original techniques using non-traditional materials. Plastic cords and strings, such as zuncho and cabuya, as well as other items originally used in the banana plantations of the Caribbean region, are now conceived as the main materials for the creation of chairs. Tucurinca was born as the revival of these techniques. We aim to rescue the traditional Caribbean chair, reinventing the designs, recovering the techniques and displaying innovation through the materials and processes. A whole range of furniture designed and inspired by the Colombian tropics.
Revival
of an icon.
Chairs typically found in small villages within rural areas, handwoven by the people. Creating a tradition that evolved from native ancestry.
US
Throughout the years, natives of the Magdalena region migrated to Santa Marta looking for new life opportunities and escaping from Colombia’s armed conflict. At Tucurinca, more than 40 craftsmen are responsible for our pieces. We work with victims of the armed conflict; people displaced from rural areas that find in our workshop an opportunity to thrive.
We are Located in Santa Marta a city with a population 450.000, of which 27% are victims of the armed conflict, 35% live in poverty and 7% in extreme poverty. Our artisans are part of these staggering figures. Most of them have no previous weave knowledge, yet grew up in an environment where handcrafting was always present and thus their innate talent to weave. Tucurinca is an inclusive project that involves their talents creating opportunities for those that where stripped from them, giving sense to their manual skills and taking them to another level.
