Anyi Ballesteros is a textile artisan working at the intersection of ecology, community, and ancestral craft traditions. She directs Agroarte, an organization dedicated to the organic production of silk and the revitalization of ancestral knowledge of natural dyeing. Founded in 1989 by ten farming families, Agroarte has become a living example of rural resilience, where women lead every stage of production—from cultivating mulberry trees and raising silkworms to harvesting thread and hand-weaving textiles dyed with pigments drawn from the land.

Through projects such as Pajarita Caucana, the collection Essence, Memory and Transformation, and ongoing collaborations with contemporary artists, Ballesteros and the Agroarte artisans have explored the chromatic spectrum of the coca leaf, reclaiming its ancestral and cultural significance. By extracting color from fruits, roots, seeds, and leaves native to the Cauca territory, they redefine the role of the coca plant within textile art, transforming it into a medium of healing and storytelling for communities that have endured the consequences of conflict surrounding its cultivation.

The work of Anyi Ballesteros and Agroarte has been presented in COCAWORLDS at Taller Boricua (New York, 2024); Arte Vivo: Amazonia, organized by Artesanías de Colombia within the ARCO Contemporary Art Fair (Madrid, 2024); and the Salerno Art Biennale (Italy, 2025).