Each day, we’re reminded how fortunate we are that ÁBBATTE’s workshops inhabit the space of the old monastery of Santa María de la Sierra, but what we share with these ruins goes far beyond the physical. These stones carry part of the philosophy that shapes us. Their harmony, their eloquent austerity, their deep bond with nature, this is what gives ÁBBATTE its character.
The walls that still stand emanate a quiet strength. They shield us from the outside and invite us inward. There’s a powerful parallel with our textiles: pieces of quiet value, sober, enduring, and serene, that offer refuge and balance amid the lives we lead.
That’s why, when Ana Zamora, director of the theatre company Nao d’amores (National Theatre Award, Spain), proposed performing "Toward Echoes of the Sacred" in the monastery, her words struck a deep chord with us.
On July 18th, 19th and 20th, ÁBBATTE’s headquarters became, for the first time, a stage for live theatre open to all, thanks to Toward Echoes of the Sacred , a guided journey through sounds of the past: footsteps, prayers, chants... An experience that connected the sacred of yesterday with the questions of today.
This was not an attempt to reconstruct the past, but to reinterpret it through a contemporary lens. How do medieval voices sound to us now? What do forgotten liturgies reveal about our present need for transcendence? For one hour, the performance invited us to step away from the everyday and take part in a collective act of living memory through theatre.
At ÁBBATTE, we work with textiles that inherit ancient traditions while also pointing toward the kind of life we seek to live today. In them, we always strive to unite the useful and the beautiful, the natural and the refined. Welcoming Toward Echoes of the Sacred into our space was another way of deepening the coherence of who we are.
Elena Goded,
Founder of ÁBBATTE
