Instituto Renato Imbroisi, founded in 2018, grew from four decades of experimentation in Muquém de São Lázaro, a weaving village in rural Minas Gerais. Its founder, Renato Imbroisi, settled there in 1984. “I came to Muquém to research handweaving,” he says. “As a weaver, I found a tradition that had remained remarkably intact.” The village could then be reached only on horseback across the mountains, and electricity would not arrive for another 16 years. Its remoteness helped preserve the tradition, while Muquém’s women ensured its continuity.

Together, Renato and the weavers brought local materials, such as bulrush, corn husk, banana fibre and avenca fern, traditionally used for other purposes, to the loom, creating new textures and surfaces. Embroidery and crochet followed, appealing to younger artisans. The collaborative model developed in Muquém became a blueprint for Instituto Renato Imbroisi’s work across Brazil. “Every project belongs to the community first, drawn straight from the place and its knowledge, its materials, its ways of making,” Renato explains. Today, the institute is a far-reaching project that mobilises communities through craft-making and craft-preserving initiatives.