An exhibition in London entitled Egyptian Landscapes is celebrating 50 years of tapestry weaving at the Ramses Wissa Wassef Art Center in Egypt. Ramses Wissa Wassef (1911-1974) was an accomplished Egyptian architect who studied at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris. He combined traditional building materials and vernacular forms in his unique designs. The art center in Harrania, Giza, Egypt is a spectacular example of his work.

Wassef was commissioned by a social welfare group in 1941 to build a small school in Old Cairo where he began experimental after-school classes in weaving. The experience inspired him to establish a weaving school for children in Harrania in 1951. In order to do this he became an apprentice to a weaver and mastered the basic techniques and learned to experiment with natural dyes. He wrote:

I had this vague conviction that every human being was born an artist but that his gifts could be brought out only if artistic activity was encouraged from early childhood by way of a craft. … The creative energy of the average person is being sapped by a conformist system of education and the extension of industrial technology to every sphere of modern life.

When admirers asked the founder of the center why he chose weaving in particular, he argued:

I chose it because I saw it as a way of getting the children to produce images by means of a craft technique, of starting them off on an activity that involved a union of body and soul, a balanced combination of manual work and artistic creation. This could have been done in other ways, but in fact the technique had to be chosen carefully. Drawing, painting, and modelling are not craftsman's trades, while mosaic work, ceramics, wood, stone and metalworks do not present the same balance between art and craft. I felt that tapestry-making would provide the happy medium for the experiment I was planning.

Clearly, the Wissa Wassef Art Centre is a counterattack by the founder on modern living and the dehumanization of the individual as well as an experiment in teaching children to "become themselves" via their creative work. There were three rules in the center: no copying, no preliminary designs, and no adult interference. Wassef believed that children have an innate ability to be creative, which from an Islamic worldview is a fitri (1) ability that is primordial, thus making the creative process and product an act of worship and praise in Islam undertaken within the boundaries of the Shari`ah. Wassef believed that every child has creative potential, so he invited any interested child, with parental consent, to attend and learn to weave at the center.

The Art Center in Spring, a piece by Ateyat Selim.

As I walked into the exhibition in London, I witnessed the child-like beauty of Karima Ali's piece, Birds & Animals, which was completed when she was only 11 years old. Soon after, I discovered another of her tapestries completed when she was 40 years old, Birds Nesting. The piece is a three-dimensional allegorical tapestry depicting a scene of tenderness: female birds lovingly tending to their young with their male partners guarding them attentively nearby, all under the protection of trees with long and winding branches in a green and luscious spot beside the Nile. Her work, just like the rest of the exhibition, is a spectacular testament to the founder's humanistic philosophy that, with the necessary training, spontaneous innate creativity in any child has the potential to manifest itself and flourish with maturity.

The first generation of weavers at the center used wool as their medium, while cotton was introduced later. Both materials are still sourced locally and are dyed using natural dyes (such as indigo, cochineal, madder, and reseda) derived from plants and animals from around the Nile River — a brilliant way to educate children about respecting and working in harmony with the seasons and local environment. This reflects the Islamic worldview of the human fitrah that actively encourages every one of us to perform goodness and moral actions for the benefit of all creation.

The well-known British weaver Pat Bloor saw the Wissa Wassef tapestries in 1985 at the Barbican Gallery in London. She was so overwhelmed by what she saw that she took up the craft. From 1993 until 2003, the year she passed away, her tapestries were often exhibited around the United Kingdom. The Pat Bloor Association organizes weaving projects in London. Twelve 13-year-old students from Warwick School for Boys in Walthamstow, London, participated in weaving tapestries inspired by local landmarks. In 1989, Beaufort Community School in Tuffley, Gloucestershire, invited one of Britain's foremost weavers, William Jeffries, to be their artist in residence for two weeks. The school borrowed a collection of Wissa Wassef tapestries from the Ramses Wissa Wassef Exhibition Trust in London to help create their own unique tapestry, involving students aged 11-16 years, for almost an entire year.

The last tapestry I viewed at the exhibition was Akhenaten's Hymn to the Sun, by Ali Selim, which never left the center since its completion in 1976. The artist was just 28 years old when he finished this stunning interpretation of Akhenaten's homage to the cycle of the sun. There are four solar discs depicted in the tapestry that perhaps illustrate the rising and setting of the sun in one day. Alternatively, I also imagined that the two blazing red discs could represent the rising and setting of the sun in summer and those of the cooler shades refer to the setting of the sun in the winter, as illustrated in the Qur'an:

[He is the Lord of the two Easts and Lord of the two Wests: then which of the favors of your Lord will ye deny?] (Surah Ar-Rahman 55:17-18)

The first generation of weavers, some of them now grandparents, are still working under the guidance of Sophie Wissa Wassef, who is the widow of the late master and cofounder of the art center. Their daughters, Suzanne and Yoanna, have continued experimenting with creativity to this day and have brought up a new set of second-generation weavers; the former employing wool, and the latter weaving batik and fine cotton tapestries. The London exhibition includes tapestries by the first and second generation of weavers, so if you have the time to visit this breathtaking collection, you will not be disappointed.

* Egyptian Landscapes – 50 Years of Tapestry Weaving at the Ramses Wissa Wassef Art Centre showing at

Brunei Gallery

School of Oriental and African Studies

University of London

Thornhaugh Street

London WC1H 0XG

The exhibition will run January 19–March 17, 2006 (Mon-Sat 10:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m.). Admission Free.

The Wissa Wassef Art Centre in Giza can be visited daily 9:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m. at

Harrania

Sakkara Road

Giza, Egypt

Tel: 381 5746 / 012 312 1359 to check for details and private tours.

For more information contact:

Ramses Wissa Wassef Exhibition Trust

36 Camden Square

London NW1 9XA

Tel: 020 7267 1034

e-mail: Barbara@wissa-wassef-arts.com

www.wissa-wassef-arts.com

** Zahrah Awaleh resides in London with her husband and two children. She works in a community organization as an advice and guidance counselor. You can contact her at z_awaleh@yahoo.com.

(1) Fitri (adjective) is derived from the Arabic noun fitrah. The term fitrah has important implications in the Arabic language and Islam. According to Yasien Mohamed, linguistically it refers to the innate natural disposition that all humans are born with. In terms of religion, he says it is essentially the primordial faith in Allah alone (tawheed) that every child is born with, thus making him or her spiritually pure from birth. Regarding fitrah and human responsibility he argues, "It is precisely because of man's free-will and intellect that he is able to overcome the negative influences of the environment and attain to the highest level of psycho-spiritual development, an-nafs al-mutma'innah, 'the self made tranquil'. At this level, his inner and outer being, his soul and body, are able to conform to the requirements of his fitrah and the dictates of the sharî'ah. He actualises his fitrah, and attains psycho-spiritual integration and inner peace." (www.angelfire.com/al/islamicpsychology/fitrah/fitrah.html, accessed February 3, 2006, excerpted from Fitra:The Islamic Concept of Human Nature. Ta-Ha Publishers, 1996.