Kerima Nashat handed me a heavy lamp filled with small, familiar-looking objects. “Can you guess what these are?” she asked. I was stumped. After a few wrong guesses, she smiled and finally revealed the answer: “They’re bullets from Wadi Degla.” She’d gathered them with her daughter, spray-painted them, and glued them to the interior of the lamp with epoxy. The result? A beautiful silver lamp perfect for complementing any modern living space. Only a thrift shop owner would know how to create something so beautiful from something that would normally end up in a landfill. Nashat is the co-owner of The Space, a thrift shop located in Maadi. Even though the shop officially opened its doors in 2016, it was a vision in the making many years prior. A Passion Turned Career During her previous job as a teacher at an American school, Nashat was assigned a project where she had to create a plan for a sustainable school. The plan included a small, student-run shop selling sustainable products, but the 2011 revolution occurred soon after and the shop never happened. She began growing aware of the importance of sustainability…
