The Andalusian sacred art mobilizes against the cops ‘low cost’ Pakistani: “It is a matter of identity” | Culture

“They are selling a product that is a lie and are taking advantage of the excellence of Sevillian and Andalusian artisans.” With these words, Francisco Carrera-oglesias summarizes, Paquilithe president of the Sacred Art Association of Seville, the warnings that the professionals of this secular guild have been launching against the one they consider unfair competition of companies based in Pakistan, which copy their embroidery and designs to make mantles and tunics for the brotherhoods at prices three or four times cheaper and in much less time. Delocation and consumption low cost He has reached the cofrade world, but its consequences can have a devastating effect on the fragile ecosystem of sacred art, composed of trades that are imbricated in the Baroque and that have subsist thanks to preservation of an artistic tradition that has formed a unique and recognizable identity. The maintenance of that essence is the basis of the offensive that these associations have undertaken against what they denounce as “intrusion” of the Pakistani workshops. “This is an identity issue, is part of our history, our culture, our heritage, our tradition and our economy,” says Paquili.

From their association they want to get the attention of the administrations to investigate the taxation of the pieces that come from Pakistan, for which they have contacted the Ministry of Finance, and seek that the European Union impose tariffs that protect the excellence of Andalusian sacred art. “We are not against the free market,” says Paquili, “but we want to play on equal terms.” In Seville, some 3,000 families live from sacred art. There is no total figure in Andalusia nor is it known the amount of money it promotes because until this same year they have not been recognized as an epigraph in the CNAE and had no parameters to quantify.

The first alarms jumped in March last year when the brotherhood of the clemency of Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz) announced that a group of brothers had given a mantle to his virgin with which he would go out to process in Holy Week. The controversy arose when it was learned that Pakistan had been commissioned, for a much lower price than the one that would have cost in an Andalusian workshop and with a much shorter delivery period. “We gathered a group of brothers who were not willing to spend 200,000 or 300,000 euros that costs a mantle,” explains David Guerrero, one of those who suffered that mantle and now is older brother of the brotherhood. “We are a humble brotherhood and we have commissioned a canopy and a mantle to a workshop here, but that takes a long time and while it arrives, the Virgin will go out with this mantle or with any of the plants it has, depending on what the prioste decides,” he explains.

That same winter, the Brotherhood of the Sovereign Power of Morón de la Frontera (Seville) reported that the trousseau of its owner was going to increase with a mantle, also donated by a group of brothers and also embroidered in Pakistan. Then, Paquili, through the Association he denounced those orders, questioning not only unfair competition, but the use of techniques away from the excellence of the guild professionals. Something that also stressed in the interview he offered two months later to this newspaper: “Those who get carried away by speed, for the immediacy, are not aware of the damage they do to an artistic tradition that is part of our history.”

Threats

When at the end of this month of August it transpired that a brotherhood of Seville Capital, the divine shepherd of Santa Marina, was going to release Pakistani pieces, the association again went out in a thromba with another hard statement that is the one that has caused Paquili to have received messages through WhatsApp with intimidating content, in which their complaints were question and whose sending was hidden behind a number of Pakistan. The embroidery is not the only one who has maintained exchanges in a threatening tone. The cartoonist, designer and designer of works of religious crafts, Javier Sánchez de los Reyes, denounced harassment through social networks of alleged artisans both to him and his partner Antonio Castro in account of the use and appropriation by these Pakistani workshops of the drawings they publish on their social networks.

“They are pending all our publications and as soon as we get something new, they immediately update their image bank and put a watermark and publish those photos as if they were their workshop. This in artistic terms is called appropriation,” says Sánchez de los Reyes. “Obviously, you see the final products, the final embroidery and do not have artistic quality, because this is a work that relies on a tradition of centuries, which obeys cultural, religious keys, an ecosystem that cannot be transplanted so easily to 8,000 or 9,000 kilometers,” he abounds.

Social networks are full of accounts that offer embroidery and jobs and that are announced under names of Muslim appearance, but also Castilian. As this newspaper has been able to check, they ask to communicate through WhatsApp to a Pakistani number and respond in perfect Spanish. For a 140×80 banner with a well -known Brotherhood of Seville -whose design is not questioned that it will be plagiarized -the interlocutor asks for 800 euros and confirms that it would be ready in a month. “Two faces here would cost 10,000 to 12,000 euros and take four months,” says Paquili. “And, of course, it would not be with a plagiarized design,” he says. The interlocutor acknowledges that in his country “there are those who steal the work of Spanish artisans and share it in their social networks. This is wrong”; But defends his professionalism: “We offer good quality products, with responsibility already low prices.”

The difference lies not only in labor, the type of fabric or technique, but in the golden thread, which costs 3,000 euros per kilo and that is only obtained from a factory in Barcelona, ​​the only one that continues to offer it. “Until you get tired,” says Paquili. These exceptionities are those that also give relevance to some trades in danger of extinction and that, just last year, received the support of the administrations, first with the Medal of the Fine Arts, a symbolic recognition and that gave them visibility beyond Desperros, and then with their recognition as a profession, six centuries later, in the CNA and the reduction of VAT, two of the main claims of the association of art association Sacrum

Reflection to the Brotherhoods

Therefore, after these achievements, they do not want the land that they have managed to conquer what the competition with Pakistan is spoiled. Sánchez de los Reyes has assumed that in order to protect the copyright will have to register all the sketches and works they do before sharing them on social networks to advertise their work. “Pakistan has come to stay, it is the Ikea of ​​embroidery mantles,” warns Joaquín Moeckel, lawyer and deep connoisseur of Sevillian brotherhood institutions. Both the intellectual property and the customs protections that the guild claims are tools that can protect its subsistence, the lawyer recognizes, but considers that the most important thing is to “call reflection to the brotherhoods themselves.“ Against the production of Pakistan you cannot fight, but Holy Week has always been the tractor point that has attracted the best embroiders, to the best browniers, to the excellence that only the professionals are of What you have to promote, ”he says.

Something that Paquili also shares. “It is important to do pedagogy,” he abounds. “Some justify these new commissions in which the Brotherhoods have few resources, but so far all, however humble they are, they have protected their heritage and that is what they have bequeathed to future generations. What they cannot do now is to dilapidate it and not read anything, because everything that comes from Paquistan has an expiration date,” he warns.

At the moment, the main brotherhoods of Seville, the Council of Brotherhoods that agglutina, and politicians such as the president of the Board or the mayor of Seville have defended the uniqueness of sacred art in front of the threat of Asian competition. This Wednesday that support will translate into a manifesto, which will also be supported by councils, municipalities, bishops, artists and the Chamber of Commerce, to demonstrate unity with an artisanal tradition that has forged a good part of the Andalusian identity. “We have to bet on something that is ours. Everyone comes to look for the excellence of Sevillian and Andalusian sacred art. How are we going to throw our identity for the ground for wanting to look for immediate, cheap and poor quality things that do not represent us?” Paili asks.