Weaving festival and summer school in Calarasi, Moldova

12. June 2019

Summer school for young weaver-women and first weaving festival in Călărași (Moldova), 11-16 June. This is as a part of our Estonian Development Cooperation project “Development of Handicraft and Women Social Entrepreneurship in Călărași Region” run in cooperation with  “Casa Parinteasca” NGO  from Palanca village.

Practitioners of this ancient craft with students come together to demonstrate their skills, exchange experience, discuss the latest trends and pass their mastery to young participants. The festival is a meeting point for not only folk artisans, but also ethnographers, representatives of academia and government structures who see this craft as a valuable component of local culture and are engaged into activities aimed at popularisation of folk weaving in Moldova. In addition, different workshops and a crafts fair with more than fifty participants from different regions of Moldova would be organised.

The festival will be held as a final event of the week long weaving summer school. The aim of the summer school is to preserve the tradition of weaving in the modern world, to develop artistic community of weavers and to shape positive attitude of local population towards local culture traditions. One of the conditions for participation in the weaving summer school is compliance with local weaving traditions, artistic transformation of ideas and motifs of local folk art with help of the latest technological achievements in the sphere of weaving. Young weaver-women from five different regions of Moldova won the selection competition to participate in the school.
By means of organising summer school and festival we hope to:
-Identify skilled artisans and amateur weavers;
-Develop long-term interregional cooperation, strengthen artistic connections in the field of decorative and applied art between regions of Moldova, exchange experience of application of new technologies in the sphere of traditional and modern weaving, which is typical for Moldovan regions;
-Provide possibilities to get acquainted with new artistic works in the field of modern weaving and identify new artistic processes;
-Promote active education and development of aesthetic taste of young people;
-Exchange experience of use of the latest technological achievements in the field of weaving and promote this art.

We expect that the festival would rise the number of domestic tourists that would possibly increase the interest of local artisans to improvement of Călărași women entrepreneurial skills in handicraft production and marketing and by these means would preserve cultural heritage of Moldova, promote employment and regional development.

The school and festival are organised as a part of the “Development of Handicraft and Women Social Entrepreneurship in Călărași Region” project run by Peipsi Centre for Transboundary Cooperation (Tartu, Estonia) and “Casa Parinteasca” NGO (Palanca village, Moldova).
The financial support is provided by Estonian Development Cooperation fund.

More information:
Margit Säre; margitsare@gmail.com