Montse Roa

Barcelona, SPAIN

“Thinking with hands.”

Montse Roa is a product designer (ELISAVA, Barcelona) and film art director (ESCAC, Barcelona). In 2015, she leaves her hometown, Barcelona, and goes to live in the countryside, in the middle of the Ebro Delta rice fields, and it is at that moment that she discovers basketry: creativity, calm, precision, and connection with nature.

It is a slow path, she first learns self-taught and then attends sporadic workshops on different Catalan basketry techniques and collaborates between designers and craftsmen. In 2020, she is confined to 30 kilos of wicker and begins to investigate a more personal line, where she combines design knowledge with traditional basketry techniques, giving rise to her first Zig-Zag collection.

Currently, Montse loves to spend hours and hours in the workshop making small collections with the intention of solving contemporary needs with traditional braiding techniques and using vegetable fibers, mainly willow.