{"id":157,"date":"2025-12-17T09:19:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T12:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archgallerydesign.art.br\/?p=157"},"modified":"2026-03-10T19:22:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T22:22:15","slug":"marta-ramada-leite-threading-heritage-into-contemporary-lighting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archgallerydesign.art.br\/?p=157","title":{"rendered":"Marta Ramada Leite: Threading Heritage into Contemporary Lighting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Handmade textile chandeliers merge Polish ancestral techniques with Portuguese design sensibility and regenerated materials<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marta Ramada Leite left corporate marketing in 2022 to create Craft Gardens, a textile art brand that reinterprets the ancestral Polish art of Pajaki with Portuguese identity. The suspended sculptures \u2014 chandeliers and installations \u2014 are produced manually with cotton threads and ECONYL, a regenerated material made from nylon waste such as fishing nets, old carpets and plastic components.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From strategy to manual creation<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A marketing professional working for a large international company, the artist decided to give shape to the creative side she had always cultivated as a hobby. \u2018I wanted to bring light, colour and soul to spaces. My desire is for each piece to provoke a pause \u2014 and a smile,\u2019 says Marta, who combines the identities of sailor, mother and marketing professional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Her connection with the sea directly influences her work. The movement of the tassels \u2014 decorative fringes that compose the sculptures \u2014 evokes waves in suspension, revealing the artist’s experience with sailing and the resilience learnt from the ocean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her connection with the sea directly influences her work. The movement of the tassels \u2014 decorative fringes that compose the sculptures \u2014 evokes waves in suspension, revealing the artist’s experience with sailing and the resilience learnt from the ocean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pieces that travel from tradition to contemporary<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Craft Gardens’ creations follow the philosophy of biophilic design, which seeks to connect nature and inhabited spaces. Each work is the result of a meditative process, built thread by thread, honouring time and artisanal gesture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the featured pieces is Blossom Gard\u00e9nia \u2013 Primavera, a suspended sculpture one metre in diameter in degrad\u00e9 ECONYL threads. The work explores rhythm, repetition and visual balance, evoking a garden in bloom. It has become an icon of the brand by synthesising manual delicacy and a message of sustainability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Blossom Gard\u00e9nia Primavera <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

International projection<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In 2025, the Suspended Gardens collection was presented at Lisbon Design Week, at Roca Lisboa Gallery, as part of the exhibition The Echo of Raw Material, curated by Wesley Sacardi. Part of the pieces travelled to Paris Design Week 2025, in an exhibition curated by architect Nini Andrade Silva and promoted by AICEP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Held at Galerie Joseph, in the Marais district, the exhibition RE.MADE IN PORTUGAL naturally was considered one of the most impactful of the Parisian edition, marking the internationalisation of the Portuguese brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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New exhibition in Sintra<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

On 25 October, Craft Gardens inaugurated an exhibition at Pal\u00e1cio de Biester, in Sintra, in partnership with Luka Art Gallery and curated by Ana Carolina Villanueva. The exhibition presents unprecedented pieces from the Suspended Gardens collection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the works is Blossom Gard\u00e9nia \u2013 Azulejos, a suspended textile sculpture that pays homage to the tradition of Portuguese tiles. In shades of blue, white and gold, the piece evokes the sea, light and time. The hearts in the design reflect the passion for art and Portuguese heritage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The work was photographed at Caves Kopke, an environment where density and luminosity dialogue with Portuguese wine tradition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sustainability as a principle<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The choice of ECONYL \u2014 thread regenerated from nylon waste such as fishing nets, old carpets and plastic components \u2014 demonstrates the brand’s commitment to sustainable practices. For Marta, luxury and environmental consciousness can coexist. “Each chandelier is both a homage to the past and a vision of the future”, says the artist, who has maintained artisanal production in Matosinhos since the founding of Craft Gardens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Handmade textile chandeliers merge Polish ancestral techniques with Portuguese design sensibility and regenerated materials Marta Ramada Leite left corporate marketing in 2022 to create Craft Gardens, a textile art brand…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[16],"class_list":["post-157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-design","tag-v1n1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archgallerydesign.art.br\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archgallerydesign.art.br\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archgallerydesign.art.br\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archgallerydesign.art.br\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archgallerydesign.art.br\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=157"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archgallerydesign.art.br\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1691,"href":"https:\/\/archgallerydesign.art.br\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions\/1691"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archgallerydesign.art.br\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archgallerydesign.art.br\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archgallerydesign.art.br\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archgallerydesign.art.br\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}