Idoia Cuesta weaves chestnut and rye straw into collaborative installation in Portugal

Textile artist Idoia Cuesta has created a participatory installation from woven chestnut strips and braided rye straw for the cloister of the Museu de Alberto Sampaio in Guimarães, Portugal. Titled Weaving Identity, the work was developed during a five-day residency for Contextile 2026, the contemporary textile art biennial.

The installation begins with a material contrast. Chestnut strips are hard yet flexible, while rye straw appears fragile until it is strengthened through braiding. Cuesta uses basketry and weaving techniques to bring the two plant-based materials together, treating the act of weaving as a way to consider identity as something formed gradually through experience, change and learning.

A shared structure shaped by individual gestures

Cuesta prepared most of the chestnut framework in her studio before completing it in the museum’s medieval cloister. During six public workshop sessions held across three days, local participants added their own braided rye-straw layers to the shared structure. Each person began from the same woven base, but made a distinct intervention, allowing the installation to gather many individual gestures into one evolving form.

The open sessions welcomed students, craftspeople, artists and members of the public, with no previous experience required. Cuesta guided each participant through the weaving process, while continuing to work on the installation individually during the remaining days of the residency. The result brings the artist’s decisions into contact with contributions made by the people who took part.

Plant fibres connect craft and place

Weaving Identity extends Cuesta’s ongoing research into chestnut and its relationship with other natural fibres. Her earlier collections, including Castanea, Liquen and Topía, explore how chestnut strips can produce open sculptural forms and combine with wool to suggest textures and landscapes. Here, rye straw introduces a second fibre and a collective process, shifting the work from an object made by one pair of hands to an installation shaped through shared making.

The work was presented as part of “Weaving the Green”, Contextile’s public art and residency programme developed with Guimarães European Green Capital 2026. It is on view at the Museu de Alberto Sampaio from 5 September to 29 November 2026, within the biennial’s eighth edition, themed “By a Thread”.

Project Credits

Project: Weaving Identity
Artist: Idoia Cuesta / @idoia_cuesta
Location: Museu de Alberto Sampaio, Guimarães, Portugal
Year: 2026
Materials: Chestnut wood strips and braided rye straw from Fafe
Organiser: Ideias Emergentes
Programme: Weaving the Green, Contextile 2026
Photography: © Pedro Figueiredo and Telma Costa