AETIA | Creative Studio ✨

MAKERS OF VENICE 🪡🧵 featuring @theplaceofwonders.foundation @makermile @martinavidalvenezia @tessiturebevilacqua @ercole_moretti @fondazioneandrianamarcello @londrapalacevenezia A incredible network of artisans, heritage, knowledge and skill lies amid Venice’s web of canals and calle, with so much insight and beauty to offer. Thrilled to finally share this location profile from the floating city, exploring its history and culture through the lens of craftsmanship. Travelling, working, learning, and exploring with craft at the core of the journey can yield such rich experiences — it might just be the way of the future. Thank you Venice 🪄💜 listen to the full profile at the 🔗 in bio.

Weaving Women, a creative workshop and gathering across generations for women 🌼 Inspired by our documentation of a last generation of carpet weavers in Sardinia – who claimed the most precious thing about lifelong craft practice was the relationships it facilitated with other women – this special seasonal gathering will call together women across generations in that same spirit of communion and collective creativity. Together we'll watch a short documentary and hear from the last generation of Sardinian weavers on female friendship and connection through craft. Then, we'll move through a series of creative prompts and exercises to explore the place of collaboration in our own lives and creative practices. I know this is going to be a powerful one, and sincerely hope to see you there ❤️ THE PROGRAMME ~ Curated and facilitated by @issabellaorlando with @freeweaver_studio 🧵 Essay Reading – Between Generations: Women, Craft and the Art of Staying Connected, by @issabellaorlando in Breathe Magazine 🧵 Short Film Screening of By Hand: Sardinia’s Weavers (4 mins) 🧵 Group Reflection – Prompts on the theme of Communion 🧵 Women’s Circle 🧵 Collective Writing Practice – “Exquisite Corpse” poetry exercise, where the group will write a poem together 🧵 Social Gathering DATE & TIME 📆 31 May 2026, 1-3pm 📍 Freeweaver Studio, 7 Carriage Way, Deptford Market Yard, London SE8 4BZ Limited tickets available, 🔗 in bio. Profits will be donated to Empower, a UK charity that supports girls & young women who have lost their mothers.

Ironic that autofocus failed on a video about the fall of the cult to the individual? ;) A few thoughts on why the brands that will thrive in this new era -- where community is queen -- won’t have customers, but communities of practice. Artisanal brands have an opportunity at their fingertips to activate what makes them soooo uniquely special, through storytelling and events that are so on point with what the collective needs right now. ⋆.˚🪻༘⋆ ⋆.˚🪻༘⋆ ⋆.˚🪻༘⋆ Aetia is a creative studio devoted to brand films, multimedia content and storytelling strategy through the lenses of art, heritage, craft, and culture. We explore the themes that run through our work through our seasonal newsletter (subscribe via the link in our bio), project reflections, and curated content.

In Sardinia, women weave side by side at large traditional looms, sharing the craft of carpet-making, along with stories, advice, companionship and care. I loved capturing their way of working because it collapses age, experience and perspective into a communal intelligence that carries culture forward. 🧶 This short film project for @thebeyondnoise arose to document what some of Sardinia’s last ageing weavers remember about the craft of carpet-weaving in its prime, following a wave of funding and support in the 1970s which today dwindles. What emerged from the process of researching these crafts, driving across the island, and speaking to the women was a tender portrait of weavers’ rules for living, cultivated from a life of making, and of craft as a point of connection across generations – something urban life and our hyperindividualistic culture might need today more than ever. Thank you @isabellafrongialabtessile for sharing your story ♥️ A few more events and pieces to follow from this incredible project & trip: 🎥: A final few tickets are left for our event with @textilesgold , @scarlettspicer and @izzy_ponsford this Friday — where we’ll screen the film and exploring the social significance of textiles and their power to help us find agency. ✨ On newsstands in May in @justbreathemagazine — @issabellaorlando ’s essay on Women and Craft, Between Generations explores intergenerational relationships, making, belonging, and resilience. 🇮🇹 Coming soon to @italysegreta — a closer look at Sardinia, its weaving practices and the women keeping its traditions alive today. See you Friday!

Movements in Thread 🧶 A gathering exploring textiles and their hidden power to tap us into intuition, creativity, collaboration, and agency. Enlivening Goldsmiths' rich textile collection, this workshop is an intuitive exploration of textiles through creative writing and guided movement. Inspired by the spiritual role that textiles have held in ancient cultures around the world – from the Egyptian goddess Net who weaves the world on her loom, to the Greek Fates – participants will learn about the lost significance of textiles, hear from craftswomen (via film) about the significance of weaving in their lives, and creatively respond to guided prompts and the Goldsmiths Collection. We believe that craft holds the tools we need to move through stuckness and weave our way through the world, and we sincerely hope you'll join in on this special workshop to explore that for yourself. ❤️ THE PROGRAMME 🪡 Reading the Wisdom of Textiles – Brief Introduction, History & Framing 🪡 Short Documentary Film Screening of By Hand: Sardinia’s Weavers (4 mins) 🪡 Creative Writing Prompts & Textile Study – Conversing with Fabric & Weaving Through Stuckness 🪡 Creative Practice – Textile-Inspired Embodied Movement 🪡 Closing Sharing Circle Curated & facilitated by @issabellaorlando with @izzyponsford and @scarlettspicer in collaboration with @textilesgold 🪡 DATES & LOCATION 📆 Friday 24 April, 4pm 📍Constance Howard Gallery, Deptford Town Hall, Goldsmiths, New Cross Rd, London SE14 6NW Limited tickets available via Eventbrite, 🔗 in bio. Proceeds will be donated to Empower, a UK charity dedicated to supporting young women who've lost their mothers.

COMMUNE WITH US // STUDIO EVENTS FRIDAY 24 APRIL & SUNDAY 31 MAY You’re the first to know that this season, we’ll be hosting our first ever studio gatherings in London (not one but two!) in the spirit of this season’s theme, acts of communion. Friends of the studio are very welcome to join both of these special events. Find the details below. MOVEMENTS IN THREAD // Friday 24 April, 4-5.30pm A creative workshop exploring textiles, weaving and their power to move us through stuckness. Hosted by @issabellaorlando @scarlettspicer @izzyponsford with the very special @textilesgold WEAVING WOMEN // Sunday 31 May, 1-3pm A film screening, writing workshop and women’s circlearound the themes of craft & communion, held in a weaving studio. Hosted by @issabellaorlando in collaboration with @freeweaver_studio TICKETS // Limited tickets available via link in bio. Sliding scale available.

Stop holding a camera up to a production line and start inviting your audience to join the community behind it. Craft often belongs to an incredibly rich context of creativity, innovation, traditional knowledge, community, family legacies, and collaboration with the natural environment. This experience of belonging to an interdependent, living ecosystem is the total opposite of what most consumers in the global north get to experience day-to-day. Yet we’re absolutely starved for it, in need of that connection more than ever. Anything made in the spirit of craftsmanship – whether woven by hand or mixed in a lab, so long as it’s done with excellence and intention – has an in-built opportunity to invite audiences to taste that experience. In short; tell the story of the way the people who make your product think, feel, learn, develop, and co-exist with the world around them. Provide your audience with the opportunity to become investors and participants in that way of being. Watch how engagement and connection change as a result. ⋆.˚🪻༘⋆ ⋆.˚🪻༘⋆ ⋆.˚🪻༘⋆ Aetia is a creative studio devoted to brand films, multimedia content and storytelling strategy through the lenses of art, heritage, craft, and culture. We explore the themes that run through our work through our seasonal newsletter (subscribe via the link in our bio), project reflections, and curated content.

A moodboard for Communion // our spring theme 🕊️ Think Mediterranean villages where people eat together in the streets. Looms so big multiple weavers are needed to work them. Chefs in a professional kitchen. Scientists. Academics. Knitting circles. A busy library. Co-operative business. Co-created music. What comes to mind when you think of acts of communion? 🕊️ Images 1-3 from Pinterest, 4 from Before Midnight (2013), 5 from our project documenting artists's process for Dulwich Picture Gallery's collaboration with record label Touching Bass. Aetia is a creative studio devoted to film, multimedia content and storytelling strategy around art, heritage, craft, and culture. We seasonally explore the themes that run through our work through our newsletter (subscribe via the link in our bio), project reflections, and curated content.

Acts of Communion // Our Spring Theme 🌱🌷🍃🐝🌸🌼 Communion has become so precious to me in the past year, and so needed by the collective. In a hyperindividualistic culture, we place so much importance on the feats and achievements of one, often above joint efforts we undertake with others, the practices we do in groups, the rituals we repeat as a collective – the powerful actions that bind us and allow us to get someplace, together. The importance of communion, the third spaces that facilitate it, and the diverse, intergenerational nature of true, organic community was really crystallised for me through my work documenting artisans. Once I saw the beauty, interdependence, social glue, resilience, and connection these collaborative networks made possible, I couldn’t unsee it. For me the value of craftsmanship is not just in the craft itself but in what these communities of practice can teach us about leading more connected, meaningful, creative lives. Each and every person within these ultimately productive communities has a specialisation, and those specialisations fit together like a puzzle to form a whole system where needs are met through collaboration. Risks are shared as much as wins, and relationships form across the web that make it all the more pleasant, social and connected along the way. I can’t help thinking we could use a dose of that in the way we work, live and operate in urban life and the modern workplace. I don’t think I’m the only one. So watch this space – a chance to connect offline is coming very soon. Til then, Issabella Orlando @issabellaorlando Founder & Creative Director, Aetia Studio ~ Aetia is a creative studio devoted to film, multimedia content and storytelling strategy around art, heritage, craft, and culture. We seasonally explore the themes that run through our work through our newsletter (subscribe via the link in our bio), project reflections, and curated content.

A moodboard for Communion // our spring theme 🫂 Think Mediterranean villages where people eat together in the streets. Looms so big multiple weavers are needed to work them. Chefs in a professional kitchen. Scientists. Academics. Knitting circles. A busy library. Co-operative business. What comes to mind when you think of acts of communion? 🫂 Images sourced from Pinterest. Aetia is a creative studio devoted to film, multimedia content and storytelling strategy around art, heritage, craft, and culture. We seasonally explore the themes that run through our work through our newsletter (subscribe via the link in our bio), project reflections, and curated content.

Craft isn’t a product or even a specific process, it’s a way of being. Five years since the start of a deep, ongoing research into craftsmanship and after ten years of communicating culture and heritage more broadly, most of the things I’ve learned have nothing to do with craft or culture itself, and everything to do with the true meaning of luxury, wellbeing and community – ironically some of the biggest industries and buzzwords in the world right now. I’m done gatekeeping the wisdom I’ve been able to tap into through a highly unconventional career path and artistic practice, and ready to help artisanal and purpose-driven brands across industries tell their stories better. Follow along for reflections drawn from fieldwork, visual diaries and inspiration, and cultural insights – welcome to The Thread, by @aetia.studio , hosted by director @issabellaorlando 🪻❀°⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

References for devotion // our winter theme AETIA STUDIO is a multimedia creative studio devoted to the worlds of arts, heritage, craft, and culture. We seasonally explore the themes that run through our projects to expand the worlds they inhabit.