Artisan experience
Monographic workshop. Leather craftsmanship

During February, Experiència Artesana took place, an event born in the Anoia county with the aim of creating experiences around craftsmanship through training and the dissemination of artisan culture.

The initiative forms part of the Anoia en Transició project, and seeks to bring artisan culture closer both to the county’s artisans, who have a more professional relationship with craftsmanship, and to the local public, who can perceive it more broadly from a more recreational or experiential angle.

Workshops, documentaries and talks, a wide programme of activities spread across four towns: El Bruc, Sant Martí de Tous, Copons and La Llacuna. Proposals aimed at establishing a dialogue between the hands and the material, bringing trades and creative processes closer to society, while showcasing the potential of craftsmanship.

The event was organised by Anoia en Transició, promoted by the Barcelona Provincial Council, Artesania Catalunya of the Generalitat’s Consortium of Trade, Craftsmanship and Fashion (CCAM), the Anoia County Council, the town councils of El Bruc, Copons, La Llacuna and Sant Martí de Tous, and with the collaboration of the La Gaspar Municipal School of Art and Design in Igualada, Copons in Loft, Amics del Cinema de Tous and Origen Llacuna.

Within these sessions, a highlight was the monographic workshop devoted to leather craftsmanship that took place on 12 February in Copons and was led by Olga Lubochka, leather artisan and artist, teacher at the La Gaspar Municipal School of Art and Design in Igualada and creator of the artisan brand of bags and accessories Lubochka.

For Olga, the material is the most important thing when making accessories. She is passionate about working the material and creating shapes and combinations intuitively, seeking the balance between the two.

This workshop focused on the roots of the trade and on working leather using traditional techniques.

Leather is regarded as an artisanal and traditional sector, as was shown by the strategic consultancy project on the perception of the image of the leather industry and its products, which Leather Cluster Barcelona carried out thanks to Acció’s IRC line of grants for clusters, over many months in 2019 and 2020, together with one of the international benchmark firms in the field of communication and strategy: Ogilvy.

Highlighting the trade from its most artisanal and traditional side reinforces those aspects for which the leather sector is well regarded by society, placing the emphasis on proximity and on the industry’s history.

Leather Cluster Barcelona is an environment of competitive cooperation for promoting cross-cutting, transformative strategic projects with the aim of driving forward the ecosystem of the Catalan leather sector. The cluster is an accredited body within the Catalonia Clusters programme and has the support of Acció.