A conversation with Anna

 

Hi Anna! How are you? Could you tell us a bit about yourself, where you're based, and what you do?

I am very well, thank you! My name is Anna Tilche and I am an Italian textile artist. I was born in Milan, but I have been living in Barcelona for many years. For most of my career, I worked as a product designer and art director. About a year and a half ago, I felt the need to change direction, to move away from office work toward a more authentic path. In weaving, I found a new dimension where creating with my hands became the center of my practice. I'm currently attending a textile art school in Barcelona. I've found my expressive language in the high-warp loom and natural fibers—a field where volume, contrast, and texture become tools to explore matter and experiment with new possibilities.

 

You mentioned you're from Milan but have been living in Barcelona for many years. I'm curious; how do these two cities actually live differently in your textiles?

Both cities have deeply influenced my artistic practice in different ways. Milan represents rigor, the essential nature of 1950s design, and strong attention to structure. It's closely tied to my family history; my grandfather Paolo Tilche designed tiles and textiles that carry a dialogue with architecture. 

Barcelona is where my path opened toward weaving. I learned the high-warp loom technique here, and fell in love with its free and experimental dimension. An important encounter was with Taller Teranyina, founded by Teresa Rosa Aguayo—a shared community of weavers from different places and cultures. There I met my teacher Olga Hernández, and deepened my practice in a very intense way. 

In Barcelona I gave voice to my artistic and experimental side. Milan continues to represent my connection to craftsmanship, home, and the desire to explore objects and interior textiles.

 

 

 

When you're choosing colors for a piece, because I can sense that color is important, what draws you? Is it something you see, or something you feel?

I am often guided by instinct when it comes to color. I have an almost automatic sensitivity toward chromatic harmony. Color has always been part of my language—I grew up in a family where it was central. My grandmother was a painter, my grandfather an architect and designer, my mother worked in fashion. I was surrounded by strong visual references: Marimekko prints, Bonfanti rugs, and skeins of merino and mohair wool in intense colors.

 

You work with so many different materials; jute, wool, linen, cotton, sisal. Which one are you drawn to right now, and why?

As for materials, I am drawn to natural fibers and "noble" materials, each with its own language. I am very interested in material diversity, which is why I often combine different materials in my work to create unexpected dialogues and both visual and tactile contrasts. Among the natural fibers I use most often are wool, cotton, linen, jute, sisal, cáñamo, and raffia, which allow me to explore constantly changing textures and behaviors.

 

That combination of materials and this very tactile practice you're describing, I want to go back to something you said about creating with your hands. There's a slowness to weaving that can't be rushed. How does that pace shape who you are?

Weaving has helped me connect with the present and develop patience. It's taught me that valuable results rarely come quickly. When I was younger, I wanted everything immediately; weaving brought me back to the real rhythm of things. There's something deeply magical in the repetition of a gesture. Like a mantra, it brings you back to the present. Feeling the fibers in my hands, their tactility, their smell, searching for chromatic harmony—it's a continuous sensory experience that transforms an abstract idea into something tangible.

This slow process has shaped who I am. It creates space for different emotions and inner states to emerge. Slowness allows time to expand and reveal parts of oneself that would otherwise remain hidden. This is why I consider weaving not only a creative practice but also a path of self-knowledge.

 

That idea of respecting your own rhythm comes through so clearly. I'm curious—what happens when you sit down at the loom on a day when you don't feel like creating? Do you push through, or do you listen to that?

I simply do not sit at the loom. It's rare for me to create without desire or genuine inner need. I listen closely to my state of mind and respect my own rhythms. Unless I need to do technical tasks, I prefer to do something else and wait for that natural drive to return.

For me, pleasure is deeply connected to artistic practice. This doesn't mean everything must be easy, but there must be authentic engagement and curiosity. Without this, the process loses part of its meaning.

 

I love that you honor that. And it sounds like you're constantly discovering new things in this practice. Is there something you're still learning about weaving? Something that still surprises you?

I've been attending textile art school for about a year, and I discover something new every day. Weaving feels like an endless universe that could be explored for a lifetime.

This year I learned soft basketry, a technique that fascinates me because it allows for a very free and experimental exploration of volume. I continue to be surprised by the ability of fibers and threads to transform and adapt. I'm fascinated by how different techniques can dialogue with one another and generate unexpected visual and tactile worlds. I have a very curious, almost childlike gaze—when something truly interests me, I immerse myself completely in it.

 

You mentioned soft basketry and this childlike curiosity. It sounds like your practice has really evolved. When you look at your work now, compared to when you started, what has shifted?

At the beginning, I probably had more spontaneity and experienced my work almost like a game. Today I feel the need to reconnect with that instinctive aspect.

My pieces have become more conceptually dense. I feel a strong desire to explore materiality, working with volume and engaging in dialogue with materials. In the past, my work was more two-dimensional. Now I'm much more interested in three-dimensionality and a physical relationship with matter. My color palette has also changed. I now work with more natural and reduced tones, seeking greater essentiality. Looking back, I feel I've grown significantly and found a language that truly belongs to me.

 

You've used the word "slowness" a few times, and I want to ask you directly: What does slowness mean to you?

For me, slowness means reconnecting with our humanity and truly inhabiting the present. It means being aware of what we are doing, moment by moment. We live in an increasingly fast world, where gestures often lose depth—while doing one thing, we're already thinking about the next.

Slowness restores a sense of ritual to life. It's a space where time regains its value and holds us. It allows us to be present and to transmit care and intention through our hands to the objects we create.

 

And finally, as you continue this practice, what do you still want to explore or create? What's calling to you right now?

I'd like to continue exploring new techniques and bring them into dialogue with the high-warp loom, expanding my expressive possibilities. I'm interested in embroidery, contemporary patchwork, and especially soft basketry, with a growing focus on volume in textile work. I'm also fascinated by natural dyeing—an ancestral and deeply ritual practice.

At the same time, I feel the desire to continue developing work related to female sexuality. My first project on this theme was Geografia Intima, a composition of nine looms exploring my experience of being a woman. It's research that feels very close to me and remains open, constantly evolving.