Almudena Cerezo/MATERIA BOTÁNICA - SPAIN

“Almudena Cerezo works on artisan textiles from her Atelier in rural Galicia. Her practice is centred around exploring materials, manual processes, the relationship between it and the environment it inhabits, and its roots.

Trained in fashion design with a Master’s degree in co-design and Sustainability in textiles, Almudena slowly moved towards research and development of textiles from a holistic social and environmental angle. Her experiences in the fashion industry taught her of the critical limitations of its current model: in terms of its environmental impact, capacity for traceability, and its general disconnection with the communities that produce its wares.

These concerns led her to find her further studies as an apprentice of the artisan textile workshops in Oaxaca, where she learned traditional techniques such as natural dye-making, manual loom-weaving, and the basketry of its local indigenous communities. This experience transformed her understanding of textiles as a whole, placing artisanal know-how, the time and care in each process, and our relationship with the terrain around us at the forefront of her practice.

In 2024 she launched Materia Botanica, a brand which was born thanks to a textile innovation grant which was given for the study and research of pigment extraction taken from agricultural residue, which were conventionally thrown away.

In Materia, She develops genderless, timeless pieces and textile objects that last, woven with wool from local sheep, and in collaboration with the small workshops in her community. In her clothes Materia Botanica explores colour through the use of pigments taken from plants foraged from its environment, plants cultivated at home and agricultural waste. Its stated intent is to create a wholly biodegradable product that, at the end of its life-cycle, will return to the earth and nourish it.”