. Raices Gushu

Project for Xtant 2024*

古树

project>>>installation>>>textile art>>>tea ceremony>>>tea hut>>>dyed in tea>>>leaves from ancient trees>>>sharing>>>offering>>>installation>>>music>>>community>>>transient>>>architecture>>>offering

The roots
Yunnan, the birthplace of tea ( Camelia Sinensis) is a west-southern province in what is now China. Tea trees are indigenous and long-lived beings that are still considered and treated like people’s ancestors. Gushu is a term that implies that tea has been made with leaf material from ancient trees, leaves that come from tall trees that are at least 500 years old.
These ancient Yunnanese tea trees have the deepest roots, that connect the plants with the energy of our ancestral Earth, that energy (Qi) comes up the roots to the trunk to the branches to the leaves to the buds that are picked and used to make Puerh tea.
Tea made from the ancient trees, gushu puerh tea, is plant medicine that can help us to re-connect humanity to the essence of life. We share tea in ceremony, in community and in silence to experience the connection that is natural to us.

The tea hut
I want to create a space, a transient space, that houses a tea chaxi (stage) , a space lightly delimited by the architecture of tea-dyed fabrics where we can sit together and share the medicine of tea. I will invite you to sit with others and quietly connect with yourself, the persons next to you and everything that is life. My explorative work has brought me to this space that has no time, it is a space that holds everybody’s needs and can comfort us with the sharing of the medicine of tea and the inherent peace. This space is a space that you can recreate anywhere, as long as you sit in silence, quietly and intentionally make tea and remember to remember. We are nature.

The intention
I am an artist, an architect, a fashion designer, a gallery curator, a tea seller, an herbalist, a parent, a student, a friend, a stranger, a person and a flower. I aim to be an instrument to bring the silent sound of earth that resonates through trees and sings songs of love to others with my practice, sharing what I know in a space that we create together.

The art
Textiles that are natural: hemp, silk, cotton and wool. Colors that stain with time and patience, through leaves and water, creating un-controlled beauty. Tea leaves, rusted metal, indigo and dirt. Pieces to wear and pieces to live with, fabrics. The limit between the architecture of the tea hut and the medicine we drink is blurred, is non-limit. We are here, appreciating and sharing a unique moment that is like all moments. Time stops, it seems, when we come to the tea hut.

The experience
Communal share of Gushu puerh tea within an environment conducive to a deep feeling of well-being. Foundational experience to extend into participants lives. Tools to carry out and into personal practice. Space, art and experience become one.

Portrait by Maria Cox, Brooklyn NY 2023

*About XTANT
XTANT prepares its fifth edition from the 9th to 13th of May 2024 in the island of Mallorca which much joy and enthusiasm.
Like its previous iterations each year's XTANT has a leitmotif, this year it is ¨ROOTS¨ Far from looking fondly at the past as an isolated article.
The examination it undertakes seeks to understand roots for what they truly are. Not just origins, but continuous parts of a living organism, of coming to a closer wholistic understanding of ourselves as both ‘everything’ and ‘forever’. 

The event will take over several heritage patios, all walking distance from each other at the very heart of the historic and beautiful streets of Palma de Mallorca. A true celebration of the art in heritage crafts that no textile enthusiast can miss. 

XTANT aims to inspire the new generations to value sustainability, personal identity, tradition and responsible consumption over commercial tendencies based on unbridled consumption. The event offers many moments of reflection and communion with the unique, the beautiful and the long-lasting.