Threads of Peace and Pattern: In Conversation with Natali Touloupou

Artist, designer, and cultural researcher, Natali Touloupou works at the threshold of memory and modernity. Through her evolving project Gridra, she explores the layers of Cyprus' material history, from embroidered patterns and oral stories to clay vessels and typography, stitching the past into the present with grace, depth, and quiet defiance. We spoke with Natali about slowness, womanhood, cultural memory, and the healing capacity of pattern.

Roots & Rituals

Helena - 1. What first drew you to work at the intersection of cultural heritage and design? Was there a moment, memory, or influence that set you on this path?

Natali - It started with stories, really. Spending my school holidays with my grandparents, watching my grandpa designing and carving his wooden pieces, observing and listening to the way he talked about patterns, the elements he was using, all rooted in Cyprus’ flora and fauna. Then learning from my grandmothers about Cyprus’ plants, herbs, and traditional cuisine, and how people used to live back in time.

As a child I didn’t understand all these as design or cultural heritage, but during my bachelor studies in graphic design, I realised how deeply it all connects to my identity. I started recognising the layers, where things come from, how they’ve evolved, and what they could become.

That’s how Gridra was born, a bigger umbrella that hosts all these projects. The name comes from “grid,” and “ra,” a Cypriot expression of emphasis, but also echoes “sucra,” an Indian word I came across during my research. India is one of the cultures I want to explore further. Gridra holds it all, the weaving of memory, research, and reinterpretation.

Helena - 2. How did your fascination with the Fythkiotiko textile tradition begin, and what does it continue to teach you today?

Natali - In university, I had a project assigned by Eva Korae, to design a Cypriot souvenir. I visited the library and found this book full of Cypriot folk art. One photo caught my attention, it looked embroidered, almost pixelated. I read the caption and it said Fythkiotiko tapestry. At the time, I didn’t do much research on it, but it stayed with me.

A year later, I had to come up with a thesis project and I felt a calling to work with the Fythkiotika. My professor, Omiros Panayides, and I decided I would develop a typeface based on the patterns of these traditional textiles. The result was a small publication featuring 32 digital motifs inspired by traditional forms.

Fythkiotika continue to teach me the importance of storytelling, especially the small, strange, and sometimes humorous legends behind each symbol. They remind me how people used to think and live, how patterns carried emotion, faith, function. They’ve taught me to slow down, observe more carefully, and remain in conversation with the older generation of weavers and craftspeople who still hold this knowledge.

Helena - 3. Cyprus holds a deeply layered and often fragmented history. How do you approach translating that richness into a visual language that feels both contemporary and respectful?

Natali - Cyprus holds a multi-layered history, and the first step for me is to listen carefully and observe. It’s very important to respect the roots and the people who still preserve this part of cultural heritage, and to explore where it can go.

I believe the answer lies in this, first I follow the rules, and then I break them. I do my best to learn as much as possible about how a traditional craft works, the materials, the process, the intentions behind it. I’ve spent time observing women weaving at the loom, learning their tools, understanding their rhythm.

Only after that can I reinterpret the work into something digital or tangible, whether that’s a typeface, an embroidery, or a composition that never would’ve existed traditionally but still speaks the same language.

Design as Healing

Helena - 4. As both a designer and peace ambassador, you move between creative and social healing spaces. When did you begin to see design as a tool for reconciliation or storytelling?

Natali - This is a very important question for me. I truly believe that design and art can bridge communities. I first realised this during my time participating in intercommunal workshops, and later as a facilitator myself.

It’s so powerful to sit around a table with people from both sides of Cyprus, sharing almost identical cultural references, stories, memories, even patterns. Design doesn’t always need translation. It can offer neutral ground, an opening.

The Pace of Pattern

Helena - 5. At Mont Trod, we speak often of “slow beauty”, of working in rhythm with the body, with nature, with time. What does “slowness” mean in your creative process, and how do you protect it?

Natali - This is a beautiful connection. My creative process normally has three stages.
The first is the deep dive, the research into a specific craft or motif, often through conversations with traditional artisans. The second is digitising the patterns into a grid-based system I create, not necessarily following the original layout. Here, I sometimes combine patterns that traditionally wouldn’t be used together. The third is bringing the digital compositions into the physical through hand embroidery.

I try to only work with repurposed fabrics. This comes with its own challenges, sourcing, treating, restoring. But it’s important to me that I reduce my footprint.

I mostly embroider outside, in natural light. And I’ve learned not to rush. If I try to finish something quickly, I make mistakes. So I let the process lead. Slowness, for me, is a form of respect, for the material, for the past, and for myself.

Pattern & Skin

Helena - 6. Fythkiotiko motifs are full of memory and meaning, passed down through generations. What do these patterns symbolize to you, both personally and collectively?

Natali - Fythkiotiko motifs truly are full of passed down memories and meanings. As mentioned before, they are an insight into how people used to live, centuries ago. What fascinated them, what symbols they held sacred, how they related to nature.

Many of these symbolic meanings appear in other cultures too. I find this fascinating, the way design speaks across borders. These patterns are cultural DNA. They deserve to be studied and preserved with care.

Helena - 7. If skin were a tapestry, woven with time and care, what stories would you hope it carries across generations?

Natali - I would hope it carries stories of tenderness. Of how we held each other through change. That it shows signs of both laughter and resilience. I’d want it to whisper not only who we were, but how we loved, created, and healed.

Shared Values

Helena - 8. Mont Trod draws from the land, from plants, rituals, and ancestral knowledge rooted in Mountain Troodos. You draw from the woven heritage of our villages. How do you see these two practices, care for the skin and care for tradition, meeting?

Natali - To me, both Mont Trod and Gridra are acts of remembrance. When we care for the skin, we’re honoring the body’s timeline. When we preserve and study tradition, we’re honoring cultural timelines.

Both require slowness and attention. They meet in ritual, in daily acts that root us in who we are and where we come from.

Helena - 9. What role do women play in preserving, reinterpreting, and evolving Cypriot identity through craft and design?

Natali - Women have long been the archivists of Cypriot culture. Through textiles, cooking, stories, or domestic design, they’ve kept memory alive through daily acts.

What’s exciting now is seeing women not only preserving but evolving heritage. Using craft as activism, fashion, installation, performance. Many women close to my age are reviving ancestral techniques in beautifully contemporary ways. They are making the invisible visible again. I find it deeply inspiring.

And we must also say, although women have been central, there are also men contributing to this preservation and evolution. Craft, like memory, is communal.

Looking Ahead

Helena - 10. What are you currently creating or researching that feels especially close to your heart?

Natali - I’m currently working on a few exciting projects.
First, the Gridra Instagram page is live, and the website too.It hosts all my projects, research, digital motifs, collaborations and embroidered work, all organised with stories where applicable. There is still a lot to upload and I am doing it gradually. Sharing the knowledge and skills I have gathered over the last years, and my appreciation for traditional handicrafts with other people, is very important to me. 

Some of my pieces are currently exhibited at the Larnaca Biennale, which is on until the end of November. I feel so happy that my pieces are exhibited in such an exhibition for the first time. And we are also in a very special collaboration with the Cypriot Bauhaus, blending traditional Cypriot pattern work with Bauhaus design principles through workshops and co-created projects.

Helena - 11. If you were to design a pattern that reflects ritual care, resilience, or peaceful aging, what would it look or feel like?

Natali - A resilient, peaceful aging and ritual care pattern would definitely feel balmy and breathable. The colours would come from plants, roots and flowers, muted, earthy tones.

It would have vertical wavy lines that intertwine, resembling a soft, harmonious path. Something you’d want to touch, to trace with your fingers. It would feel like softness and strength at the same time. And you’d remember it.