The Center for Traditional Textiles in Cuzco

The Center for Traditional Textiles in Cusco is a non-profit organisation established in 1996 to aid in the survival of traditional Andean textile traditions and to provide support to weaving communities. Working with the Center, Quechua weavers and their families in the region of the former Inca capital are engaged in skills-building, community net-working and market development. By researching and documenting complex ancestral styles and techniques, the Center helps to ensure that 2,000-year-old textile traditions will not be lost for future generations.

In the last few decades, the industrial world has introduced change in remote Andean villages in the Peru. Cusqueñan textiles, considered more precious than gold by the Inca, are in danger of extinction. In 1996, Quechua-speaking master weaver Nilda Callañaupa and friends from the United States founded the Center for Traditional Textiles (CTTC), fearing that many techniques and patterns dating back thousands of years would be lost in this generation. Yet the work of the Center is not only to preserve and study Peruvian Andean textiles, documenting their symbolism and significance. The goal of CTTC is also to assist families to create a larger market for their textiles, and through fair trade practices contribute to a new economy for their communities.

How the Center Carries Out Its Work

The Center’s approach is to visit, establish and maintain reciprocal relationships with selected weaving communities in the Cusco region. The first step is to appraise the state of the art in each village by interviewing community members, conducting a written survey and identifying the ways that the Center can encourage and support weavers and their families. For example, the Center purchases textiles to encourage talented weavers to continue weaving and learning while earning money to support their families. Another approach used by the Center builds on the Andean tradition of partnerships formed between children learning to weave and experienced village weavers. The Center is encouraging elders in the communities, who carry rare information, to pass their expertise to the next generation. Each of the participating communities now has a community weaving shelter where participating weavers work together, sharing knowledge and building strong community ties. Each community has its own association with elected leadership and establishes prices for weavings produced in their community.

More Information:
http://www.textilescusco.org

If you want to learn more about weaving and the Center, as well as how to hel support it financially please email us and we will be happy to let you know how to go about it.

If you are interested in an itinerary focussing on weaving and visiting the communities where weaving is still a way of life, please let us know and we will design it for you.