Occupy Cultural Threads (2021) is an audiovisual installation on textile circularity, created to encourage to take action on designing circular approaches to textiles. Occupy Cultural Threads' (2021) concept was inspired by the author's grandmother and mother's skills for dressmaking.

Special Thanks to House of U in Eindhoven for sponsoring Occupy Cultural Threads (2021) banner in Natlab's collective exhibition in the city of Eindhoven.

Occupy Cultural Threads ​(2021) by Viviana M. Calderón de la Barca premiered on 10 December 2021 as part of Baltan Laboratories social design progam in the city of Eindhoven in the Netherlands.
Behind the Scenes, Occupy Cultural Threads ​(2021).

Featuring
texture designer Beatrice Maione
and
industrial designer
Ruben Warnshuis

Soundscapes
​Leon van Bokhorst

Images by
Niek T. Klasen 
and
Viviana M. Calderón de la Barca 
Behind the Scenes, Occupy Cultural Threads ​(2021).

Featuring
Design  Academy Eindhoven student Brandon Chow

​A glimpse into our talk with chemarts biobased designer Iines Jakovlev,
on the future-focused way to recycle colour
​holding its sustainably roots.

Iines also explains how extracts of fabric materials are embedded into cellulose fibres as a sustainable all-natural finishing agent.

Interview by design student Brandon Chow.

Habitat - one of three shorts part of Occupy Cultural Threads (2021) - is now available to watch online:

Interview with fashion designer, research and technology Troy Nachtigal on data as sustainable material
​

On the Author’s Roots

Viviana M. Calderon de la Barca is
writer and director of short film Life Is A Cultural Thread (2022),
Occupy Cultural Threads triptych installation (2021),
and short film Life Is A Journey (2019/20).

While all works pay homage to the director’s dear mixed heritage and ancestral linkages, Life Is A Cultural Thread (2022), is dedicated to her maternal legacy as the great granddaughter of Federico Calderón de la Barca Romualdi and Carmen García Vallesinos, both, offspring of Spanish and Italian immigrants to Mexico. 

Like them, Viviana’s father Eastern European descent makes her also part of her current home in Europe. The Netherlands is where her marital relationship brought her from Canada. It’s in Dutch land where she has lived the most and where she feels the most at home. Her birthplace, on the other hand, is San Angel. Once a beautiful valley between two volcanoes, one snowcapped and the other of fire in Mexico City.

​
Makeup artist Veronique Mari.