alhaja

In this solo exhibition Lucía Scarselletta conducts an investigation into traditional Gaucho braiding and the manual leatherworking practices of the gaucho cowboy.

In Alhaja, artist Lucía Scarselletta conducts an investigation into traditional Gaucho braiding and the manual leatherworking practices of the gaucho cowboy. This braiding technique was traditionally made by men to produce functional ranching equipment, formed from a mesh of Indigenous craft, Hispanic, North African, and Arab cultural lineages, and typifies layered histories of migration, exchange and cultural hybridisation. As settler expansion intensified across the Río de la Plata region, braiders honed a personalised manual language in response to the suppression of traditional craft during the colonial period. Over time, these techniques evolved in acts of persistence and resistance, adapting new technologies while refusing erasure, generating contemporary forms. Against this backdrop, the exhibition reconsiders gaucho braiding as a manual technology capable of articulating new material ethics. Scarsellettas' work addresses the violent infrastructures of ecological extraction within the land of the Gaucho and the modern agro-export model of Argentina, rereading Gaucho braiding and the leather industry through a post-humanist lens encompassing systems of labour, land, animal bodies, and capital.

What to expect:
Installation