Wheat braids

2023

Installation
Rye straw from the Vall del Bac (La Badosa)
Wheat straw from Riudellots de la Selva
Within the framework of a participatory project for the Aplec of Sant Miquel Ses Vinyes, Serinyà.

Intervention of plant fibres with environmental intention, remembering the symbolic meaning of the celebration of Saint Michael and the agrarian rituals of gratitude. Popular festivals point out the link with the rest of the Universe, to remind us of what life is.

The autumn equinox or Saint Michaels day marked the beginning of the annual wheat sowing, which took place before Advent. At this time, celebrations were held to thank the gods for the harvest of cereals and other basic good, such as grapes, which coincide with the vintage process.

In the agrarian rituals of wheat cultivation, weaving or braiding of wheat straw has been used as ritual ornamentation or representations of the “spirit of wheat”, who must be cared for and honoured during the festivities, to ask for good luck in the following harvest.

The relationship between humans and wheat is ancient; this cereal has been the main good of the western diet for millennia. With corn and rice, they constitute the tree main sacred and basic products.

Myths, rituals and stories have been the symbolic instruments to understand or interpret that which surpassed our understanding and was unintelligible to the human eye. This is the case of Demeter, the Greek goddess of agriculture, highly revered by the Greeks, and although her figure is rarely present in the epics, the cult of Demeter was one of the most important among the rural people. It represented the pagan idea of the mother goddess, of fertility, and taught how to sow, till and cultivate.