Eleven years ago we launched our project at the National Crafts Fair, organized in the city of Colón, Entre Ríos. As our organization makes progress, the spirit of that initial project guides us in each of our endeavors.

After the brief but intense activity displayed, let us say that it has been our goal to elevate popular arts in Latin America to the outstanding position they deserve.

In our zeal to create such a position, we have published magazines, catalogs and booklets; we have organized exhibits and auctions, round tables and conferences; we have organized seminars, participated in national and international shows and opened the first independent office for the management of crafts development in the city of Buenos Aires.

We have done this and much more. Let us now stop making a balance and continue our small history step by step. Before that original launching in February 1990, we had first organized a network of social communications “sensitive to crafts related activities” in Entre Ríos, then in Santa Fe, in Jujuy and in the province of Buenos Aires. We were also given the responsibility of the General Secretariat of that non governmental structure.

While in office, we coordinated two Seminars and participated in a third, in which the main topic of interest was the phenomenon of communication in crafts and popular arts. Once the problems they encountered had been assessed, we realized that it was fundamental to publish a Bulletin through which the opinions of the sector could be heard and its needs made public.

Since these concerns were not satisfied through the Internet, we assumed the commitment to publish a periodical that we called Manos Artesanas.

Finally, within the framework of the 1993 National Crafts Fair, we presented our organization, which had by then been christened Manos Artesanas Communication Project, and its first achievement, Issue number Zero of our publication. Since the, a lot of water has gone under the bridge.