Nilda Callañaupa Álvarez - PERÚ

Nilda Callañaupa Álvarez is a founder and director of the Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco through which she has endeavoured, as a weaver, to preserve the tradition of fine handmade pieces and to promote the economic development of the weaving families in ten communities around the city. 

The textiles of Nilda Callañaupa Álvarez and her community are made from sheep and alpaca wool, then dyed with natural plants and woven on back strap looms. This process, inherited through generations dating back to long gone cultures of ancient Peru, retains patterns and motifs now millenia old.

The artisans of the cooperative make ponchos, blankets, shawls, tablecloths and bedspreads in their own time as they mix this activity with their daily work as farmers.

One of the first women in her community to attend university, she, in addition to that, studied for one semester at the Pacific Basin of Art school in Berkeley, California and authored 4 books on Peruvian weaving whilst also co-authoring another book centered on weaving by communities of elderly people in the Peruvian Andes.

Her project to raise and bring awareness to the richness of traditional Quechua textiles, has gained substantial international support and allowed her to globally showcase these ancestral techniques of Quechua weaving masters.

@centrotextilescusco