Nilda Callanaupa Alvarez

Artist, Explorer, Project manager, Social entrepreneur, Writer/Editor

Alvarez was born in Chinchero in the Department of Cusco, Peru where as a child she tended sheep and learned spinning and weaving. She was one of a few girls in Chinchero to go to high school, and the first person to attend university. She attended the University of San Antonio Abad, earning a Master’s Degree. In 1996 she founded the Peruvian non-profit Centro de Textiles Tradicionales de Cusco dedicated to the revitalization of ancient Andean textile traditions. CTTC has grown to encompass ten weaving communities. Nilda has been a speaker and given guest demonstrations at Cornell University, Harvard University, the Peabody Museum, the DeYoung Museum of San Francisco, the Textile Museum, National Geographic, Smithsonian Institution, and the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market, among other institutions. She is an internationally recognized authority on traditional Andean textiles, and author of three books, Weaving in the Peruvian Highlands: Dreaming Patterns, Weaving Memories; Textile Traditions of Chinchero: A Living Heritage; and Faces of Tradition: Weaving Elders of the Highlands with Dr. Christine Franquemont, which won the International Book Publisher Association’s Benjamin Franklin Award for Multicultural Books in 2014. Among her awards is the Artisan Hero Award from the Aspen Institute’s Alliance for Artisan Enterprise.

survival of cultural, arts, languages and opportunities of the minority artistis

Women's experience on projects

Alliance of Artisans

Andean textiles