The banana is used for handicraft at Chira Valley

While you taste the fruit, he makes those wonders with his hands.

 

Photographs provided by Antony Medina, distributed by FACTORTIERRA.

 

SALITRAL (Sullana), Peru – In general, we believe the banana process finishes when we consume it as fruit or preparation – a shake or an ice-cream, for example. However, the fiber forming its trunk can have more lives than a cat.

 

What we believe it’s the trunk  of a banana plant, it’s actually layers of leaves surrounding the real trunk, once the plant goes growing up, they go displaying. The fiber comes out from there, whether the layer is green or dry.

 

The fiber can be used in sheets or threads, even. Its products are many – from utilitarian objects to clothes, passing through handicraft. In fact, if the banana thread is mercerized, it comes out a cloth with a texture quite similar to denim, and if the fiber is thinner, the texture is similar to silk. In both cases, the mercerized thread is hard to break by a hand work.

 

In salitral District, located in the middle of Sullana Province, artisans give new lives to banana fiber.

 

Antony Medina, 25, makes purses, hats, and even real-size & scale sculptures representing human beings and animals. “I just attended three workshops,” the dude explains, assuring he never entered a fine arts school, although that has been one of his professional dreams.

 

Medina also paints, restores, makes imitation jewelry, and customizes clothes, all based on the banana fiber. “We can make many things, paper inclusive, but we need special machinery,” he says, and,at the moment this story releases, neither he or his colleagues have enough money to fund the purchase.

 

Check actual weather forecast if you want to visit Sullana Metropolitan Area.

 

The banana grows across Salitral District (10.92 sq mi), so the artisans have the prime matter just extending their hands as well as they can select qualities and textures. When it’s still breaking out, the fiber use to be colorized in green, but when it dries, it turns pale brown.

 

Medina uses natural products like the annatto, the turmeric, the lime juice, wild flowers, and even purple corn for achieving new tones which he paints his works. To proof the final art, he uses natural resins coming from the banana itself. “Nothing’s dismissed,” he explains. Although he admits the metallic textures of some Works are obtained with artificial colorants used in bakery.

 

Check more art by Antony medina: Facebook | Instagram | TikTok (content is only in Spanish).

 

The artists community of Salitral achieved to organize before Covid-19 pandemic, and joins artisans, mainly specialized in banana fiber, and painters, mainly wall paint’s.

 

 

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