One of the best known and most successful community projects was set up during the 1950s in Egypt by the architect Ramses Wissa Wassef. He opened a workshop in the village of Harrania specially to teach peasant girls and boys aged eight years and over to weave tapestry.
According to Wassef, the children were not selected because they possessed any particular talent. He hoped simply, left to themselves, they would all be able to produce tapestries representing different aspects of their daily lives.
And that is what they did.
There was no supervision, there were no cartoons from which to work, the children were simply left to improvise. They wove camels, goats, elephants and mice, and people in their daily surroundings. The weavings were invariably meticulous and detailed.
The studio at Harrania is still in existence, now with a second generation of weavers. The work has been exhibited all over the world. They are highly prized as collector’s items because their freshness and childlike simplicity, technical expertise and the clarity of their depiction of their country, make them unique.