He Canary Islands Wool Festivalwhich this year celebrates its tenth edition, takes place this week in the municipality of the orotava and it will live its big day this Saturday the 18th with the celebration of the popular thematic craft fair, in which there will be workshops and live sheep shearing. 20 artisans linked to this sector will participate and coming from different points of the archipelago. The exhibition will take place in Constitution Squarebetween 10:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m., and will include sound workshops with wool, knitting, crochet, Tenerife rosettes, Andean cords and round looms, among others.
The Plenary Hall of the Orotava City Council hosted a presentation this Wednesday attended by the mayor of the town, Francisco Linares; the Councilor for Tourism and Heritage, Delia Escobar; Lola Reyesrepresentative of the Entity for the Diffusion of Art and Culture (EDAC), promoter of the event, and Ricardo Cologandirector of the Museum of Ibero-American Crafts of Tenerife (MAIT).
Linares valued “this great project that celebrates its tenth anniversary, for its great educational and cultural significance”, as well as for allowing “to recover a trade and a raw material that were being lost, as well as being an important and potential economic resource”. In his opinion, “is a unique fair that contributes to bringing this world closer to society, in a pleasant and attractive way. Each of the activities are authentic didactic classrooms, which promote greater knowledge and use, and the generational change with new expectations.
Delia Escobar He valued «the consolidation of this extraordinary festival with which traditions are recovered, the primary sector is favored, techniques are recovered and the local product of high-quality natural fibers is promoted. This fiber allows traditional jobs, but there are also innovative initiatives that are booming. More and more participation is achieved, so it’s a success».
The Museum of Ibero-American Crafts of Tenerife hosts about twenty workshops
The objective of the festival is to value the importance of wool and recover the hallmarks associated with this trade that they were practically in danger of extinction in the Canary Islands, while continuing to protect the livestock sector and, especially, sheep, some of which are also at risk of disappearing. Another of its objectives is to bring the population closer to all the stages of the wool process, from sheep breeding to wool handling, and to discover the craft activities and the entire textile process. With the festival they rise educational, sustainability, equality, environmental, ethnographic and heritage recovery values.
The assistants will be able to contemplate in the square of the Kiosk how the wool is removed from the sheep
The festival program includes an innovative show, Loom Voices which will premiere tomorrow, Thursday, March 16, at 8:30 p.m., in the Francisco Álvarez Abrante Auditorium of La Perdoma. The work, by Iván Quintana, Ayla Rodríguez and Mateo Felipe, will show the entire wool process on stage accompanied by Canarian songs. The entrance, at a price of five euros, can be purchased through the platform of Tickety. In addition, this week more than twenty workshops are given at the Museum of Ibero-American Crafts of Tenerife.
The festival also claims to be an inclusive event. On Friday the 17th IES La Orotava Manuel Pérez González will host a workshop for migrants, where they will be able to see first-hand some of the stages of the wool process. This group will learn to spin with spindles or spikes, electric and manual spinning wheels, as well as handling manual and drum cards. The event, organized by the EDAC, has the collaboration of the Government of the Canary Islands, the Cabildo de Tenerife, the Tenerife Rural Foundation, la Caixa and the town council.
