Ramses Wissa Wassef
ART CENTER

Nadia Mohamed is weaving green thread into a tapestry on the loom in front of her. Branches of palm trees layer over one another; pigeons fly off toward their brown dovecote. “The more time and dedication you give this work, the more it gives you back,” the 60-year-old says as she works.

Mohamed, like the other weavers at the Ramses Wissa Wassef Art Center, began learning the craft when she was 11 years old, and it has shaped her life. “We spend more time here than we do in our own homes,” she says, explaining that it is not only her source of income but the community where she feels she belongs. She started frequenting the center in 1974, joining her cousin, who was part of the first generation of weavers trained by the Egyptian architect Ramses Wissa Wassef in the 1950s. 

Wis...