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Metaphors of a Modern Culture | Sergio Chavez Ahuate
October 2024
Winning project of the textile creation residency grant at Atelier Mondial
SALON MONDIAL (CH)


The historical connection between patterns and textiles has long served as a medium through which cultures worldwide codify their subjectivity and cultural identity. 
In Ser La Greca, Mexican artist Sergio Chavez Ahuate weaves together intuitive explorations, forging links between symbolic language and cultural production that spans various geographical zones. This work, developed during his residency at Atelier Mondial (Basel, CH), reflects ongoing investigation into how textile design can represent personal and collective discoveries while revisiting and updating the metaphors of modern culture’s origins.

Through his intricate pattern design system, he utilizes cosmogonic symbols from the Anahuac cultures, such as the Xicalcoliuhqui (Mitla Greek Key) and Tescanicuilli, to create patterns that exist at the intersection of abstraction and figuration. This work speaks not only to cultural identity, but also to the historical role that textiles and patterns have played in the formation of identity and in the expression of culture across time. As the artist reflects on the relationship between textiles and culture, he reveals how these symbols, even as they lose their original meaning, continue to operate as codes that carry immense power in shaping our perception of identity and culture in the contemporary world. Through the synthesis of print and traditional weaving techniques, Ahuate encodes these meanings, preserving the essence of ancient cultures while recontextualizing them for a modern, transhistorical dialogue.

These works offer a reflection on the transmodern environment and the ways in which patterns continue to shape our collective cultural consciousness.