ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Marisa Fick-Jordan - Craft artist, product designer
South African product designer Marisa Fick-Jordan works with Zulu wire artists to develop a sustainable, worldwide market for their bold and shimmering work.

Why you should listen

Marisa Fick-Jordan is the co-author of Wired, the authoritative work on Zulu wire art. Using castoff telephone wire -- those plastic-coated copper strands you sometimes find outside switching boxes -- practitioners of this art create tightly woven pieces with bold patterning and fields of shimmering color.

Working with these talented African artists, Fick-Jordan has brought this art to the world, developing products and building a distribution network for a worldwide market. The end result: a traditional art form is preserved and developed -- and a village of weavers can earn a living through their art.

More profile about the speaker
Marisa Fick-Jordan | Speaker | TED.com
TEDGlobal 2007

Marisa Fick-Jordan: The wonder of Zulu wire art

Marisa Fick-Jordan compartilha as maravilhas da arte Zulu com fios

Filmed:
336,911 views

Nessa curta apresentação, com imagens, Marisa Fick-Jordan conta como um vilarejo de tradicionais tecelões Zulu criou um mercado mundial para os seus deslumbrantes trabalhos.
- Craft artist, product designer
South African product designer Marisa Fick-Jordan works with Zulu wire artists to develop a sustainable, worldwide market for their bold and shimmering work. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

00:12
The decorative use of wire in southern Africa
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O uso decorativo de fios ao sul da África
00:15
dates back hundreds of years.
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data de centenas de anos.
00:17
But modernization actually brought communication
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No entanto, a modernização trouxe de fato comunicação
00:20
and a whole new material, in the form of telephone wire.
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e um material completamente novo na forma de cabos telefônicos.
00:24
Rural to urban migration meant that newfound industrial materials
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A migração rural-urbana significou que materiais industriais recentes
00:29
started to replace hard-to-come-by natural grasses.
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começaram a substituir fibras naturais difíceis de serem obtidas.
00:33
So, here you can see the change
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Então, aqui vocês podem notar a mudança
00:35
from use -- starting to use contemporary materials.
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a partir do uso de materiais contemporâneos.
00:37
These pieces date back from the '40s to the late '50s.
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Estas peças datam dos anos 40 até o final dos anos 50.
00:42
In the '90s, my interest and passion for transitional art forms
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Nos anos 1990, meu interesse e paixão por formas de artes transicionais
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led me to a new form,
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conduziram-me a uma nova forma,
00:48
which came from a squatter camp outside Durban.
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que veio de uma favela fora de Durban.
00:50
And I got the opportunity to start working with this community
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Eu tive a oportunidade de inciar o trabalho com esta comunidade
00:54
at that point, and started developing, really,
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àquele ponto, e comecei a aperfeiçoar, seriamente,
00:57
and mentoring them in terms of scale, in terms of the design.
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guiando-os em termos de escala, em termos de design.
01:03
And the project soon grew from five to 50 weavers in about a year.
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E o projeto logo cresceu de cinco para 50 tecelões em cerca de um ano.
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Soon we had outgrown the scrap yards, what they could provide,
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Em pouco tempo excedemos o que os ferros-velho podiam fornecer,
01:11
so we coerced a wire manufacturer to help us,
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então persuadimos um fabricante de cabos a ajudar-nos,
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and not only to supply the materials on bobbins,
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e não apenas a suprir materiais em bobinas
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but to produce to our color specifications.
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mas a produzir com nossas exigências de cores.
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At the same time, I was thinking, well,
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Ao mesmo tempo, eu estava pensando, bem,
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there's lots of possibility here to produce contemporary products,
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existem muitas oportunidades aqui para se produzir peças contemporâneas,
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away from the ethnic, a little bit more contemporary.
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afastadas da étnica, um pouco mais modernas.
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So I developed a whole range around -- mass-produced range --
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Então eu desenvolvi toda uma gama de produção em massa,
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that obviously fitted into a much higher-end decor market
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que claramente ajustou-se a um mercado de decoração muito mais sofisticado
01:37
that could be exported and also service our local market.
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podendo ser exportado e também servir nosso mercado local.
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We started experimenting, as you can see, in terms of shapes,
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Começamos a experimentar, como podem ver, em termos de modelos,
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forms. The scale became very important,
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formas, a escala tornou-se bastante importante,
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and it's become our pet project. It's successful,
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e ele virou nosso estimado projeto. É bem-sucedido,
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it's been running for 12 years. And we supply the Conran shops,
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vem sendo realizado por 12 anos, e fornecemos às lojas Conran,
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and Donna Karan, and so it's kind of great.
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e Donna Karan, então é de certo modo notável.
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This is our group, our main group of weavers.
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Este é o nosso grupo, nosso grupo principal de tecelãos.
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They come on a weekly basis to Durban.
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Eles vêm semanalmente a Durban.
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They all have bank accounts.
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Todos eles possuem contas bancárias.
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They've all moved back to the rural area where they came from.
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Todos eles retornaram para a zona rural de onde vieram.
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It's a weekly turnaround of production.
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É um processo semanal de produção.
02:11
This is the community that I originally showed you the slide of.
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Esta é a comunidadade cuja migração eu inicialmente mostrei a vocês.
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And that's also modernized today,
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Ela também está modernizada hoje,
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and it's supporting work for 300 weavers.
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e provê trabalho para 300 tecelãos.
02:21
And the rest says it all.
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E o resto diz tudo.
02:24
Thank you very much.
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Muito obrigada.
02:25
(Applause)
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(Aplausos)
Translated by Daniel Henrique Tsuha
Reviewed by Sadon França

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ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Marisa Fick-Jordan - Craft artist, product designer
South African product designer Marisa Fick-Jordan works with Zulu wire artists to develop a sustainable, worldwide market for their bold and shimmering work.

Why you should listen

Marisa Fick-Jordan is the co-author of Wired, the authoritative work on Zulu wire art. Using castoff telephone wire -- those plastic-coated copper strands you sometimes find outside switching boxes -- practitioners of this art create tightly woven pieces with bold patterning and fields of shimmering color.

Working with these talented African artists, Fick-Jordan has brought this art to the world, developing products and building a distribution network for a worldwide market. The end result: a traditional art form is preserved and developed -- and a village of weavers can earn a living through their art.

More profile about the speaker
Marisa Fick-Jordan | Speaker | TED.com