From graphic sign to symbol.
The world of symbols is an ancient language that offers a tool to deepen creative expression and connection with the subconscious world of each of us.
As children, we learn to identify images before we can speak, and when we acquire knowledge beyond our culture, symbols allow us to transcend the limits of language. Images, therefore, as the basis of communication, apply to our inner workings, encouraging dialogue with our “Self” and the transcendental world.
Experts in subconscious psychology postulate that our brains work from two distinct areas: the rational and intellectual method of the conscious mind and the less understood and more mysterious subconscious mind, which seems to function through instinctive and intuitive processes.
Our conscious mind can choose written and verbal language as its main voice, but, as is evident in the wild realm of imagination in our dreams, our subconscious prefers to speak through images, symbols, and associations born from a personal or universal creative act.
The basis of the human creative act comes from instinct, sensation, physical or psychological need, and therefore from desire.
Man has always desired to know and understand, to improve, to want “more” so as to evolve and transform, and has always sought a tangible way to connect with higher powers, hoping through his unconsciousness for the possibility of a physical personal transformation. For this reason, throughout history, many drawings have become iconic symbols and talismans from simple graphic signs.
Colors, lines, simple and complex shapes, sacred images, crosses, Madonnas, hearts, the sun, the moon, floral and zoomorphic themes have been drawn, painted, carved, and woven to create mystical points, to tangibly cross the boundary between creative essence and divine power.
By lighting our imagination with symbols that speak to the deepest parts of ourselves, we begin to sew together a new way of seeing ourselves and a new space in which to exist.
The creative process is not simply about what is made, but is a completely mystical process that guides us across the bridge between the inner world of the soul and the outer physical world. Everything that illuminates upon crossing this bridge happens first at the moment something is created, when a work of art is created, and reaches its peak when the tangible good can be touched and placed in a recognizable context.
From this principle arise the universal archetypes and divine symbols recognizable to all. These are engraved in the collective unconscious, and throughout history, they have differed only in form depending on the constructive elements, the geographical area, and past human and commercial exchanges. Every people has made its own interpretation: the primitives, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, etc., including the Nuragic people, the Shardana, and modern Sardinians.
Whether through painting, although different, weaving, engraving, with metals, or in different forms and colors, the meaning of each symbol has never changed. For this reason, many divine meanings, expressed through various visual forms, travel through time, space, and different cultures, because the essential meanings are similar in all contexts created throughout human history.
Observing the cycles of our galaxy and our lives on Earth, since ancient civilizations, man has noticed larger divine patterns that take shape and influence our existence, so much so that many of these have evolved into fields of study such as astronomy, psychology, astrology, and to a certain extent biology, although the idea that there is a greater power acting through these forms has been obscured in recent centuries by the Enlightenment thinkers in favor of science and mathematics, subjects that, however, cannot fully explain or decipher the language of the subconscious.
Working with images, man manages to find correspondences to the desire, feeling, and emotion he experiences, and while seeking the most tangible drawing, he acts on the idea that all things in existence are interconnected as if they were the warp and weft of a great tapestry woven by time. Through images, man therefore finds a way to speak to his subconscious and, thanks to symbolic power, align himself with the conscious mind.
In practical terms: the conscious mind is the tip of an iceberg above the water that would like to take a direction and decide on its own, but meanwhile, the subconscious, the gigantic piece of ice below the surface, is the rudder that guides the entire apparatus. However, the two parts use a different language, so how can the tip of the iceberg direct the submerged part of the ice? It does so through simple images and therefore through symbols. This is how talismans and good-luck charms were born, through drawings, objects, graphic signs, instinctive signs, and gestures condensed with real and tangible meaning, driven by a need, a desire, that shows the subconscious the direction one would like to take.
The modern man's subconscious is full of archaic associations that have probably been passed down through ancestors, in the same way that cultural know-how and physical peculiarities inherent in everyone's DNA have been passed down.
Symbols are images that travel through time and space, eternal and omnipresent, each representing an ancient need, a desire, a talisman, a state of mind, or a culture; today they represent, through logos, even companies, products, and ways of living.
Srdn represents those of Sardinia's textiles to convey Sardinian culture through an entire collection that creates the union between artisanal know-how and current trends.
Srdn textures are the result of historical research into the world of home textiles, specifically “is pibiones,” which on tapestries and rugs compose the symbols of “Is Gancios, su pistoccu, Sa ide, le Pavoncelle, and Sa cassa.”
They are interpreted in a modern key with placed prints and decorative patterns that maintain the millennial value attributed by ancient and archetypal history.
Through a graphic language of fashion, home decor, photography, stories, and tales, Srdn uses Sardinian symbols as cultural heritage to undertake a stylistic and multifaceted journey in which design and tradition, ancient weaving techniques, embroidery, and the cross-pollination between the peoples of the Mediterranean and Sardinia are highlighted.
Discover the Sardinian symbols taken from the weaving of rugs, tapestries, and the embroidery of folk costumes that have been selected for the Srdn collections: