Weke



︎ horspistesproject.com

Rubber yarn, recycled plastic yarn, dyed cotton

Weaving workshop directed by Maurice Nagalo
Weaves made by Eveline OuedraogoBibata
Tire-recycling workshop directed by Paul
Zabré
et Théodor Nikiéma

In collaboration with Hors Pistes Project,
Ouagadougou – BU




In Eveline's workshop, a loom, some thread spools and mounds of plastic bags were displayed in anticipation of a forthcoming revival. New clients and new orders were needed to relaunch the production of recycled loincloths and weavings. Maurice Nagalo originated this project: weaving threads from plastic bags collected by the women of Ouagadoudou’s Green Brigade so as to create accessory lines, bag collections and sandals. He told me that this craft production cannot rival with Chinese import items that are found everywhere in the city. The workshop was not equipped to manage the patronaging, the sewing and the manufacture of finished products.

I wonder how to do away with these expensive steps. First by cooperating with other close-by workshops. Second, by developing a weaving method that, once passing through the loom, would create its own assembly system. Later, I visit Cité 1-2, where I discovered craftsmen working from recycled tires. A man lacerated a huge inner tube, and got regular and thin strips. I offered him to buy a few strips that I intended to weave on Eveline’s trades.


Back to the workshop, we carried out several tests, we used the textile length as a giant samples. As they proceeded through the loom, each on of them was like a page where we could experiment with a multitude of writings, colors, dyes, thicknesses, and blends of plastic yarns and yarn rubber. The first tests were surprising. The pneumatic wires were caught in the warp threads, facetting our textile material, imprinting symmetrical folds, building strange geometrical figures that were moired and hatched.

On the sides of these new textile forms, large rubber loops can be clipped with one another thanks to adhesion of the rubber. 
These giant closures ensure a seamless assembly, the patronage of the object can be directly weaved and is no longer an  additional step in the manufacturing process.














       
             






         

   












         



                   










                           







































       

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