S3 E4 | Judith Cruz Laserna | Textile Art and Community Engagement | Perú

Este episodio es en español | This episode is in Spanish

Transcripciones/Transcripts: Aymara, English, Español, Guaraní, Português, Quechua

Judith Cruz Laserna grew up in a community in the Peruvian Amazon, a three-hour walk from the nearest market—a place where dolls were fashioned from rolled-up sweaters and threads were secretly pilfered to practice the art of warping. From childhood, she knew that a textile is not merely a piece of fabric; it is memory, identity, and a reflection of the weaver’s very soul. Today, she is a weaver, a cultural manager, and the first recipient of a UNESCO-MALI scholarship program dedicated to training women cultural managers in Peru.

In this episode, Judith shares stories of her years working with rural schools and communities—of artisan mothers who discovered in the backstrap loom a pathway toward both economic independence and cultural pride, and of a poncho woven for Peru’s Bicentennial that has since become a part of history. It is a conversation about what it truly means to pass down a living tradition, and about the power of fearlessly sharing the knowledge bequeathed to us by our ancestors.