Layla Hassan’s studio occupies the top floor of a converted warehouse in Cairo’s Mohandiseen district. The space is flooded with natural light, and every surface is covered with sketches, fabric samples, and fragments of text — evidence of the artist’s restless, research-driven process.
Hassan, who trained as an architect before turning to art, is known for large-scale textile installations that explore the relationship between domestic space, memory, and displacement. Her work for VANGUARD 2026 — a new commission titled Inheritance — will be among the largest she has ever attempted.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about what we carry with us,” Hassan explains, gesturing at a wall of photographs depicting interiors of homes across Egypt. “Not just physically, but in terms of knowledge, aesthetics, ways of making. The commission is an attempt to make that inheritance visible and tactile.”
The installation will take the form of a suspended architectural structure woven entirely from hand-dyed textiles, incorporating patterns sourced from domestic interiors across three generations of Egyptian women. Visitors will be invited to walk through and beneath the structure, experiencing it as both sculpture and shelter.
Hassan has been working with a team of weavers and dyers in Upper Egypt to produce the textiles, a process she describes as deeply collaborative. “The skills these women possess are extraordinary and undervalued. This project is as much theirs as mine.”
Inheritance will be presented in Chapter Three: Synthesis of the VANGUARD 2026 exhibition, opening 15 March at the Downtown Cairo venue.
