RAMSES WISSA WASSEF ART CENTRE
EGYPT
THE FIRST GENERATION HIGH-WARP TAPESTRY WEAVERS
The Ramses Wissa Wassef Art Centre is the home of a unique experiment in tapestry
weaving that has produced extraordinary works admired and collected by museums
and art and craft lovers around the world. The life work of its founder Ramses Wissa
Wassef (1911-1975) was dedicated to releasing the innate creativity of children freed
from the constraints of formal education. 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 practising 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."
To test his theory he established an "art centre" in the village of Harrania within sight
of the pyramids of Giza and, with the consent of the parents, Ramses Wissa Wassef
invited any child to come to learn to weave. The children were left to weave whatever
they liked guided by their innate creative talent and drawing inspiration from within
themselves and their environment. There were three rules only: no copying, no
preliminary designs, no adult interference
The “First Generation” is the group of children who learned to weave at the Art
Centre at the beginning of Ramses Wissa Wassef’s “experiment in creativity” in the
1950’s. The group was made up of 15 children aged between 9 and 12. Today, 5 of
the original group are still weaving.
Today the weavers still choose their subject matter themselves and weave
spontaneously onto the loom. The Wissa Wassef’s are willing to help an individual
plan the tapestry in her or his mind and they provide fresh sources of inspiration by
reading stories to the weavers and taking them on outings, perhaps to the zoo, the
desert, the seaside or trips along the Nile.
After Ramses Wissa Wassef’s death in 1974, his widow, Sophie took charge of the
“first generation”, ensuring its spirit and guiding philosophy remained alive. She also
oversaw the running of the Art Centre complex and designed new buildings for it
including the gallery that houses the permanent collection.
THE SECOND GENERATION HIGH-WARP TAPESTRY WEAVERS
In the 1970’s, when Ramses and Sophie Wissa Wassef’s daughters, Suzanne and
Yoanna started to teach groups of children weaving and batik painting, the family
decided to distinguish between these and the group who learned to weave in the
1950’s. They called the latter “the first generation” and the former “the second
generation”. Suzanne Wissa Wassef started her first group in 1972. Initially, she
invited the children of the first generation weavers to join her project. Although
Ramses built Suzanne a workshop on the far side of the garden, it soon became
apparent that these children, many of whom had spent their earliest years sitting
beside their mothers at the loom, tended to imitate the adults’ designs. The lack of
spontaneity in their work moved Suzanne to disband her newly-formed group and
take in children who had never been exposed to weaving. She also encouraged them
to find a wide range of subject matter and new forms of expression.
Once the children in Suzanne’s group had mastered the techniques and learned to
think for themselves, they were able to create whole scenes and broad landscapes,
something that had taken the first generation much longer to achieve. Children joined
Suzanne’s group over a period of about 15 years. Today, she supervises 18 weavers
ranging in age from 30 to 45. From the start, Suzanne guided the children according
to her father’s beliefs but with some modifications to meet the huge social changes
that have taken place in Egyptian society. The success of the “second generation”
weavers is further proof of Ramses Wissa Wassef’s belief in innate artistic ability and
the circumstances in which this can best be fostered.
In 1977, three years after Ramses Wissa Wassef’s death, his younger daughter,
Yoanna revived the craft of low-warp weaving that her parents had begun but
discontinued some years before. The fineness of cotton as a material requires a very
different technique from high-warp weaving in wool. The cotton weaver sits at a
horizontal loom, using a foot-pedal to separate the warp threads and make it easier to
pass the hanks of colour between them. The images take much longer to appear than
those in wool. Initially, because cotton does not take vegetable dyes as readily as
wool and the Art Centre had no experience of dyeing cotton, the children had to
content themselves solely with white and blue. Over time, in step with the children’s
mastery of cotton-weaving skills, it proved possible to produce a larger range of
colours. This encouraged them and gave them more tools with which to express
themselves.
When Yoanna started the cotton weaving group, she took in 10 boys and girls. She
expanded the group with two further intakes, so that in 2007 there are 20 cotton
weavers aged between 10 and 42 years. Each cotton-weaver shows distinct
individuality, particularly in her or his preferred subject-matter. One loves geometric
designs and finds his subjects in traffic signs, temples or alphabets. Another is
fascinated by people and mostly depicts scenes from everyday life like the market, a
feast, a fight or a day at the pyramids – always with a touch of humour. All produce
work of remarkable intricacy, delicacy and variety, confirming Ramses Wissa
Wassef’s belief that “no child is devoid of the most surprising gifts”.