Interpreting knowledge

Oiamo is a nomadic atelier from Rio Grande do Sul officially nominated by the Global Sustainable Association (GSA) committee for the Kyoto Global Design Awards 2023 in the Best 100 category and winner of the Bornancini Design Award in the Economic and Cultural Impact category. The brand was created by designer Tiago Braga who is dedicated to mapping and updating the memory and energy of ancestry in native communities from the extreme south of Brazil. Through a reinterpretation of natural and recycled raw materials in the rescue of artisanal processes, which are disappearing. Mobilizing gaucho women's collectives in an important border area, with unique characteristics, formed during more than three centuries of miscegenation of Iberian peoples in interaction with different indigenous groups, blacks and European immigrants with great influence of Uruguayan and Argentine Templadism.

Oiamo's creations explore the millenary manual arts such as knitting, loom, crochet, embroidery, basketry, carpentry inspired by a peasant side, but also coastal and city. The rhythm of the southern landscape

Oiamo's creations explore the millenary manual arts such as knitting, loom, crochet, embroidery, basketry, carpentry inspired by a peasant side, but also coastal and urban. The rhythm of the grayish linear southern landscape and the cold climate that is so different from Tropical Brazil - a country made of differences - form his poetic visions of scenarios and installations that amplify the practice of crafts and the ancestral way of life, as a value to be rescued. 

The methodology used by designer Tiago Braga, called by him Ancestral Design, is based on his connection with the intangible culture manifested in ancestral craft techniques and with the southern way of life. The projects conceived bring together the different skills and competences, in a valuable combination of ideas and experiences. They explore, in an innovative and sustainable way, the materiality of natural fibers such as banana, bamboo, wicker, recycled cotton and pure wool. The result is an organic aesthetic experience that values the plurality of thoughts and enriches the creations with the collectives of artisans expanding memories beyond their cultivated territory. The creative process takes place in cultural exchange, respecting the expressiveness of time, of the raw material in the integrality of its handling, enhanced in the encounter between design and craftsmanship that is transmitted through orality, from generation to generation.

Oiamo's collections are part of important curatorships in Brazil and abroad such as Bref, Design Art (Paris / FR), Mac Design (Miami / USA) and the N Rosenbaum Fair (São Paulo / BR). He has carried out projects with renowned professionals such as Marcelo Rosenbaum, creating pieces for Farm Rio (New York / USA and Paris / FR) and in projects curated by Constanza Pascolato, Maurício Arruda, Michel Lott and Stephanie Ribeiro.  Present in several exhibitions such as DW! São Paulo Design Week, Design Oriundi 2020, curated by Joice Joppert, Casa Cor, among others.