Dédalo Arte y Artesanía

Behind the sign bearing the name of Daedalus is a gallery-shop in a house with several rooms and an inner courtyard. In rooms connected by passageways, ceramics and textiles, furniture and clothing, original jewelry, and objects made from recycled materials stand side by side. More than seven hundred creators’ works are now gathered here, and one of the rooms is given over to temporary exhibitions. The name above the entrance belongs to a hero of Greek myth who was credited with creating the Cretan Labyrinth; in this house, too, the rooms form a sequence of passageways around the courtyard.

Two days a week, María Elena Fernández, the founder of Dédalo, received new designers in this casona. They brought finished pieces, and she decided what would go into the rooms of the gallery-shop. Fernández looked for original work and good craftsmanship; the selected objects were displayed and sold here. No room was set aside at Dédalo for Fernández’s own works: she considered selection itself to be her craft.

Fernández conceived this work after returning from Florence, where she studied literature and art. In Lima, she wanted to bring together under one roof artists, jewelers, designers, and makers who had nowhere to show their work alongside one another. In nineteen ninety-two, Fernández rented a small space in El Suche Passage in Miraflores and began with original jewelry.

Two weeks after opening, a bomb exploded nearby on Tarata Street. The business had to be shut down. Fernández later explained her decision without heroic language: life went on, and she needed to work. For four years, she held sales in a home garage. Then the project moved to Barranco—first to a room in a casona on Pérez Roca Street, then here, to the house on Sáenz Peña.

Here, her selection had consequences for both sides of the transaction. Customers gradually stopped comparing a signed handmade piece with a cheap mass-produced object. They began demanding more sophisticated and higher-quality pieces. The creators had to master new techniques and refine their work more carefully. What began with jewelry in one shop grew into a collection of ceramics, textiles, furniture, clothing, objects made from recycled materials, and works of art. Today, the casona presents the work of more than seven hundred creators; a separate room is occupied by temporary exhibitions.

Daedalus, whose name is written on the sign, was a skilled master in Greek myth and the creator of the Cretan Labyrinth. In the Barranco casona, his name can be read literally: passages lead from one room crowded with works to another. Only instead of the Minotaur, there is a courtyard at the center, where artists, craftspeople, and customers meet thanks to the selection that María Elena began in her own garage.