Wicker weaving in Soriano Calabro

Soriano Calabro lies in the Serre Vibonesi, some three hundred metres above sea level, within the province of Vibo Valentia. It is a town that has built its identity around the Dominican Convent (Convento Domenicano) founded in 1510 and the veneration of San Domenico, but which carries within it, in the daily gestures of its older residents, another kind of knowledge: that of hands weaving wicker.

Wicker work belongs to the category of rural crafts that never sought visibility. Baskets, panari (traditional woven baskets) and sieves were born of the concrete needs of agricultural and domestic life: holding grain, sifting flour, carrying the fruits of the land. Flexible branches — gathered, soaked, patiently worked — became everyday objects through a weave that took years to master. The technique passed down within families, from father to son or mother to daughter, without schools or manuals, only through observation and repetition.

In the inland areas of Calabria, and particularly in the Vibo Valentia district, this craft has endured longer than elsewhere, protected by geographical isolation and by an economy that for decades continued to depend on the land. Soriano Calabro is one of the places where it persists: here certain artisans have kept the practice alive, still producing according to traditional forms, with the same materials and the same gestures that define the local tradition.

Today the continuity of this craft depends on a handful of practitioners. Demand for woven objects has declined with the spread of industrial materials, and generational renewal is slow. What remains is not a folklore to be put on display, but a precise technical competence, made up of working times, knowledge of the raw material, and choices concerning the tension of the weave and the strength of the finished product. It is in this concreteness that the craft retains its weight.