We join textiles with digital storytelling. In collaboration with communities living near biodiversity hotspots, we create textiles using traditional weaving, regenerative dying practices and materials, and insert digital portals, in the form of artfully woven QR-codes.

Textiles hold power. They shape how we feel, how we appear—and they anchor one of the largest value chains in the global economy. While we often associate garments and fashion with joy and celebration, the industry carries a heavy environmental burden: massive water pollution from dyeing processes, soil degradation, and biodiversity loss driven by pesticide use, not mentioning the masses of waste caused by fast fashion. We propose to turn this relationship around by sourcing fibres through agroecology and by-products of food production.

Twenty seconds is the amount of time it takes for a hug to have a healing effect: After twenty seconds our body starts to release oxytocin, a hormone that creates connection, bond and a sense of community. This is the feeling we seek to convey and implement through our fabrics.

Our fabrics carry messages – we call them “abraços” - about community’s connection to animals and ecosystems around them. They tell about their challenges but also about how they manage to establish a harmonious relationship with their surroundings, as in the idea of One Health and One Wellbeing. This message or “abraço” is not just symbolic but consists of an artfully inter-woven QR-code, visible to the weaver, the wearers and their admirer. It leads to an audio-file; a song, a myth, a podcast, that connects us by inspiring a One Health life style.

Twenty seconds is a spin-off by Storytex. We join storytelling and textiles according to ancient traditions but in conjunction with digital technology and regenerative practices.