Buenos Aires, Argentina

Argentine designer Cristián Mohaded presents an exhibition of his current work entitled “Territorio Híbrido,” which translates to “Hybrid Territory,” at the National Museum of Decorative Art in Buenos Aires for which he worked with master craftsmen in the use of materials typical of the different regions of Argentina.

Curated by Wustavo Quiroga, the exhibition presents more than 20 of the designer’s recent works produced especially for this show that is characterized by the combination of expert techniques, raw materials, and the fusion of historical and contemporary aspects of design.

For this project, Mohaded worked with master craftsmen from different parts of the country, among them the symbol artisan Lorenzo Reyes, from San Fernando del Valle de Catamarca, the textile artisans from Belén Graciela Salvatierra, Darío Diaz and Mauro Gutiérrez, and the weavers of the Catamarca Carpet Factory, Soledad Acevedo, Isabel Argañaraz, Soledad Barrientos and Jorgelina Corzo.

The curatorial strategy of the exhibition proposes to update a pioneering idea of Ignacio Pirovano (Paris, 1909 – Buenos Aires, 1980) of tracing an Argentine-style based on the distinctive qualities of the country’s regions. 

For each place, its culture, its techniques, and indigenous materials give shape to a singular identity that together manifests national unity.

Mohaded takes up this idea of an Argentine design language both at the national level, by recognizing the cultural diversity and productive capacities of the local territory, and at the international level by configuring an understandable image of the Argentine from a Latin American vision capable of inserting itself into a market global.

During the 20 months that elapsed from the beginning of the project until its opening, Cristián Mohaded traveled more than 32,000 kilometers through the provinces of Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Córdoba, Catamarca, Santiago del Estero, Tucumán, Salta, and Jujuy. 

In his journey, he selected various techniques and materials for his pieces: handicraft weaving on a Creole loom, Creole rope working with raw cowhide and stitching in fine pony leather tints, specialized carpentry work with native woods such as Moorish cedar. missionary or the fallen cactus cardón, fiber basketwork of catamarqueño symbol, minerals such as mica, boreal granite, and white onyx.

The Hybrid Territory exhibition takes the entire floor of the Errázuriz Palace, the building of the National Museum of Decorative Art, and is divided into thematic modules. 

Upon entering the building is Campo de Torres, an installation of monumental columns where Cristián takes over the Great Hall of the museum, proposing a sensitive approach to the landscape of Catamarca, his native province. 

Through these towers woven in traditional basketwork, the designer presents an experience that invades the senses and allows the viewer to immerse themselves in the atmosphere of the valleys and mountains of northern Argentina.

In the Dining Room, the collection of Hybrid Species design pieces is exhibited, in which the decoration is reinterpreted from a selection of furniture, objects, textiles, and lighting that we could refer to in “Creole art deco” and “natural brutalism” styles.

The Argentine artist and ceramist Santiago Lena was invited to make a set of pieces in collaboration with Mohaded.

In that sector, two carpets 2 meters wide by 3 meters long, woven by artisans from the Catamarca Carpet Factory, are exhibited. 

The designs – made with 90 thousand knots per square meter – represent the pink veins that flourish in the cuts of rhodochrosite, a semi-precious stone found in the bowels of the Andalgalá mountains, in Catamarca. 

The artisans who worked for more than a year weaving these rugs were Soledad Acevedo, Isabel Argañaraz, Soledad Barrientos and Jorgelina Corzo.

Outside the museum, the garden is intervened with a modular installation of benches that make up the Garden of Stars. 

These elements, based on the triangular prisms that Jean Michel Frank establishes on his Surprise table, are arranged on the ground as a tribute to the Italian Francisco Salamone who populated the fields of the province of Buenos Aires with art deco constructions in the 1930s.

The exhibition is completed with El Encuentro, a collaborative collection of Creole silverware together with a group of special guests made up of renowned national and international designers and artists who create a South American reference object such as mate through their imprint and language. 

The special guests are the brothers Fernando and Humberto Campana from Brazil, Roberto Sironi from Italy, and the Argentines Pablo Reinoso, who lives in Paris, Celina Saubidet and Maria Molinelli, creators of Cabinet Óseo.

Finally, in the Salón Madame the background of this comprehensive project is exposed, where through sketches and plans, samples, essays, and documentary records, the platform of two years of collective work and the professional development of Mohaded in its 15 years of creations.

Project: Hybrid Territory
Designers: Mohaded Studio
Manufacturer: Mohaded Studio
Photographers: Osvaldo Fantón