December often brings with it plenty of festivals and fairs, and in Colombia this means the start of Expoartesanías, one of Latin America’s biggest craft or ‘artesanias’ fairs, with the goal of promoting the high standards and traditional processes that go into making Colombian artisanal products.

The most innovative proposals can usually be found over at the Diseño Colombia booth, an initiative created by local craft authority Artesanías de Colombia, meant to introduce traditional techniques to contemporary designers and preserve these processes by incorporating them into modern pieces.

For the 2019 edition of Expoartesanías, Diseño Colombia invited designers to collaborate with artisans for ‘Travesía,’ or ‘Crossing’, a collection inspired by the fairs and festivals native to the territories inhabited by the artisans. The collection, which also incorporates the graphic patterns and symbols of these artisans’ ethnicities, also takes into account the traditional dances, clothing, musical instruments and color palettes in line with each geographical region.

Travesía features everyday items such as plates, benches, chairs, lamps and textiles, and presents collaborations by designers Alejandro Tapias, CarmWorks, &Lar, Cruz de La Pava and Verdi, among others. Other designers worth noting are Quinta Edición, who worked with weavers from the Putumayo region to create the Tiyana chair, Ocho Infinito, who learned the traditional process of wood veneered in Tamo (wheat threads) from artisans in the Nariño region, and Mariana Vieira Mar, who created the Wounan stool by combining turned wood with woven palm fibers. artesaniasdecolombia.com.co