Woven Lives: About

About Woven Lives

Woven Lives: Contemporary Textiles from Ancient Oaxacan Traditions examines how traditional art and design play an active role in the cultural sustainability of the Zapotec communities in Oaxaca. This documentary, which traces the development of the weaving process from the first people in the valley to the present day, uniquely blends the perspectives of art, design, business, history, ethnic studies and cultural anthropology. While the textiles are the centerpiece of the film, it highlights the life around the production that creates a sense of connection to the culture, the community, the past and the future. �

The weaver�s work is filled with color and textures from dyes and yarns. The meditative movement of the spinning wheel and swift work of the weaver's expert hands show a rhythm of motion at the loom that has been going on without interruption for centuries. The workroom is filled with the clack of the looms, the noise of the chickens in the yard, and the voices of the weavers as they speak with pride of their work. Photos can capture an instant. Written words can describe the scene and pass on tremendous amounts of information, but only through movement, color and sound can one really communicate the experience of the process, their connection to their culture and the beauty of their extraordinary textiles.

Woven Lives Crew

Director and Executive Producer: Carolyn Kallenborn
Written by Carolyn Kallenborn with Moises Villavicencio Barras, Madison WI
Post Production: David Braga of BragaVision Media, Madison WI
Videographer: Alejandro �Luke� Reyes, Mexico City
Local Producer (Oaxaca): Dulce Angel Vargas
Local Assistant (Oaxaca): Zeferino Perez Reyes
Graphic Design by Julie Moehn, Cambridge WI
Website by: Richard Anderson, Tlaquepaque MX

Music By:

Lila Downs. Courtesy of Cloud People Music and EMI Music North America. www.liladowns.com
Banda Jim�nez
Los Brujos de Huejutla myspace
Los Folkloristas web site
Son de Madera my space
Claudia Mart�nez
Ernesto Anaya myspace
Los Molcajetes myspace

At the heart of this project is a simple idea: that cloth carries memory. In the Zapotec villages of Oaxaca, weaving is not a solitary craft but a shared language passed between generations, where the rhythm of the backstrap loom marks the hours much as the landscape marks the seasons. The film follows threads from the valley's earliest inhabitants to the artisans working today, showing how a single piece of cloth can hold both ancient technique and a living, breathing present. What emerges is a portrait of culture sustained not in museums but in the steady, patient work of hands.

The documentary deliberately refuses a single lens, drawing instead on art, design, business, history, ethnic studies, and cultural anthropology to make sense of what it observes. This blending matters because the textiles are never treated as isolated objects of beauty. They are shown within the life that surrounds their making, in the dye pots and markets, the family workshops and the conversations between makers and buyers. By widening its frame, the film reveals how tradition and commerce, memory and innovation, are woven together as tightly as any warp and weft.

What lingers is the richness of the senses, the deep reds of cochineal and the vivid color of the landscape, the sounds of the loom and the voices of the people who keep it moving. The story is ultimately about continuity, about communities finding ways to retain identity and culture while adapting to a changing world. It celebrates the extraordinary beauty of ordinary work and invites viewers to see weaving as something far larger than cloth, a form of knowledge that shapes how a people understand themselves and their future.