Atelier Balancê uses hands as tools to interweave research, craft and art.
Practice.
Based on ancient and traditional know-how, Atelier Balancê applies basket weaving techniques on found materials such as natural fibers and discarded materials.
With the intention of valuing and safeguarding this cultural heritage, learnings and insights are shared through workshops, and by converting them into new shapes and objects. Stories become tangible.
Atelier Balancê is an honouring to slowness and ancestral craftsmanship, a sculptural and poetic exploration, and a call for ecological awareness.
© Kali Fawaz
© Nicholas Hannes
Biography.
I’m Ysaline Ophoff, born in Belgium and now based in Portugal. With a background in architecture, I decided in 2019 to put my curiosity for the manual work of basket weaving into practice. I immersed myself in this traditional craft with local basket weavers in the Brazilian Amazon. By discovering the different layers of this craft – the technical know-how, the embodied nature, as well as the social and cultural aspects of it - my curiosity and desire to explore it more only grew. In 2020 I founded Atelier Balancê.
'balancê' is a swinging movement like a canoe in a river, a hammock on a boat, palm trees in the wind or the waves of the sea. It's a dance, a flowing movement, ginga. It's warm yellow and deep orange, an early morning glow, an evening sun. It's a mood, a mindset.
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