On Saturday, April 25 we finally kicked off the first session of our Co-Weave Lab, and I must say that the day went really well! We left Cairo and headed north towards Tanta, just to steer westwards before reaching it, and headed to Damanhur, which in the days of Mehmet ‘Ali Pasha (1804-1849) was the regional capital. From Damanhur we followed the Mahmudiyah Canal (named after Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II), which links Alexandria to the Nile River. The Mahmudiyah made Fuwwah rich: built starting from 1817, the canal begins right in front of the city, allowing it to profit from the trade traffic between Cairo and the Mediterranean Sea.
On our way there we distributed a personalised Pattern Book, containing a condensed documentation of some of the most striking patterns to be found in the heritage buildings of Fuwwah, on wood, on brick, and on stone. It was entirely created by our students of Interior and Graphics and Media, who photographed and traced the patterns, and then turned them into an agile reference item for designers.
We reached Fuwwah around 1 PM, and we briefly stopped at the Tekeya al-Khalwatiyah, a beautifully preserved 17th-century Sufi lodge. We are thankful to the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities for graciously allowing us to use the heritage buildings of the city, which are normally closed to the public. From here the designers started a walking tour of Fuwwah, which hit some of the most scenic monuments along the Nile, such as the Dome of Abu al-Naga', the Mosque of al-Numayri, and the Mosque of al-Qana'i, on the minaret of which we were allowed to climb. The view from the top is breathtaking!
In the meantime, at the Tekeya, our (former) colleague, artist, and designer Gul Thakur deliver a workshop to twenty-five kilim makers, among them two of the only five female weavers in the city. Through discussion and activities, Gul introduced them to the jargon of design, with the intent of empowering them when communicating with designers ahead of the pairing and design session.
By 3:30 the tour and the workshops were over, and we could all gather at the Tekeya for an informal refreshment of feteer meshaltet (layered pie), ‘asal (honey), molasses, tahini (sesame spread), mish (fermented cheese), and qeshta baladi (thick cream).
The last part of the day was dedicated to pairing designers with craftspeople. We came up with a way to help the weavers express their interests and values and break the ice. Each one of them received a deck of custom-made cards, each with a word in Arabic and English and an illustration on it. The kilim weavers went through the cards and picked three or four themes of value or of interest to them, such as “friendship, “home”, or “the Nile River”. The images were taken from the famous Bayt al-Kritliyah copper plates made by ‘Abd al-'Aziz ‘Abdu in the 1940s for Gayer-Anderson Pasha. We thought adding a graphic element would support those among the weavers who could not read. As each kilim maker spelled out their name and preferences, the designers took notice; after the round was over, the floor was open for the pairing. By offering the kilim makers a workshop and giving them the agency in picking interests and values, we tried to address the imbalance between them and the designers.
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