Words and images by Nicolás Garrido Huguet
Alquimia Textil is a collaborative exploration project created alongside fashion researcher and designer María Lucía Muñoz. The work documents natural dyeing techniques practiced by the women artisans of Pumaqwasin, in Chinchero, Cusco.
The project seeks to give visibility to, and help preserve, these ancestral dyeing methods and techniques that require meticulous hours of manual labor and often go unnoticed within the broader textile industry. As traditional processes are increasingly being displaced by industrial methods, we aim to highlight their value and significance by revealing each stage of the dyeing journey. The work also fosters a direct connection with the local community and honors the artisanal labor behind these practices.
The photographs feature three natural dyes traditionally used in the region: qolle (Buddleja coriacea), a shrub or small tree whose flowers yield a range of yellow tones; ch’illka (Baccharis species), whose leaves and stems produce ochre and green hues; and the well-known cochineal (Dactylopius coccus), a small insect native to the Andean valleys, from which a wide spectrum of reds can be extracted, ranging from scarlet to crimson to deep purple.
I photographed the entire dyeing process using both digital and analog formats, but ultimately chose to present only the analog work. The decision was rooted in a desire for alignment between process and meaning: analog photography, like natural dyeing, is slow, hands-on, and grounded in the materiality of the world.
Also, unbeknownst to me, both of the film cameras I used, one medium format (120 mm) and the other 35 mm, each borrowed from different friends, had light leaks. What initially felt like a technical flaw slowly took on symbolic weight. These light leaks didn’t diminish the images; instead, they echoed the imperfect, unpredictable nature of traditional dyeing. This project doesn’t aim to control every variable as industrial production does, but rather embraces uncertainty, staying true to the organic, intuitive rhythm of natural dyes. Made over open wood fires, in small pots, without precise temperature control, these dyes produce outcomes that are always shifting: colors that fail to bind as expected, fibers that react in surprising ways, and unexpected influences from the surrounding environment.
I also incorporated the alternative photographic process of Van Dyke brown printing, applying it to papers and fabrics that had been previously dyed with the natural pigments mentioned earlier. This technique produces warm, earthy-toned images that are developed through direct sunlight, further reinforcing nature’s role in shaping the final result. During the developing and drying stages, the residual chemistry of the dyes continues to act on the surface, creating textures and tones that are entirely unique and impossible to replicate.
I find a shared logic between analog photography and natural dyeing in the sense that both are slow processes rooted in transformation, guided by time, chemistry, and intuition. The convergence of these two crafts allows not only for aesthetic exploration, but also becomes a way to honour manual labor as a poetic gesture and a quiet form of resistance to industrial standardisation.
This project was awarded 1st place in the Environment category of the 2025 Sony World Photography Awards.
Nicolás Garrido Huguet is a Peruvian photographer born in 1993. HIs work sits at the intersection of documentary, conceptual, and fashion photography, combining elements from each genre to build narratives that reflect on identity and territory. HIs main interest is to explore humanity in all its facets and its relationship with the environment, approached through an intimate and sensitive lens.
He works exclusively with analog formats, considering it a more affective and unstable archive. In recent years he has incorporated traditional alternative photographic processes such as Van Dyke printing, and has experimented with organic materials to integrate the physicality of the medium into the discourse. This approach allows the image to be not only a visual record but also a physical trace, creating a dialogue with natural and organic processes that transform the photograph into a unique object.
He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Communications from UPC University and completed the Annual Photography Program at Centro de la Imagen in Lima. In 2024 he co-inaugurated Alquimia Textil with María Lucía Muñoz at the Museo Galería del Banco de la Nación in Cusco, and for that work he received the 2025 Sony World Photography Award in the Environment category. His photographs have been published in the British Journal of Photography, MAPS #7923, and Héroes del Bicentenario edited by the Peruvian Association of Photojournalists (AFPP). They have also been exhibited in group shows such as El Momento Indefinido at Galería Fisura and No Future at the Cultural Center of the University of Lima.
Garrido Haguet is currently developing documentary projects focused on Latin American cultural heritage with a special interest in ancestral crafts and millenary traditions that form part of the intangible heritage of his country, observed from a contemporary perspective. These projects aim to create a dialogue between memory and photographic experimentation.
