Craft cultures and artistic productions have always been of great interest for the research and promotional purposes of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Americas in Florida (MoCAA). For this reason, Leonardo Rodríguez and Ivonne Ferrer recently decided to visit the headquarters of Taller Maya and Ensamble Artesano, located in the Centro neighborhood of Mérida, Yucatán.
The visitors spoke with Marina Poo Mayo, commercial director of Taller Maya, who explained that it is a collective brand made up of more than 28 craft businesses from 19 communities across the Yucatán Peninsula. She also noted that the initiative collaborates with contemporary designers to establish a dialogue between ancestral knowledge and innovation, through the creation of pieces that help keep Maya culture alive.
In 2020, Taller Maya joined the initiative of the Haciendas del Mundo Maya Foundation to form Ensamble Artesano, a platform that was born with the goal of reactivating the economy of the craft sector and that currently promotes creative production through participatory design, responsible value chains and fair trade, with the purpose of continuing to strengthen this sector in Mexico.
Ensamble Artesano is a nonprofit initiative driven by the Haciendas del Mundo Maya Foundation (FHMM) and Taller Maya, in partnership with Design Week México, Caralarga and Estafeta, and with the advisory support of Igeneris and the United Nations Development Programme in Mexico (UNDP). Its work is made possible thanks to the generosity of foundations and organizations that have joined the platform through donations aimed at reactivating and promoting craft production in Mexico.