For centuries, tatreez has been deeply embedded in Palestinian heritage, and in recent years it has seen renewed significance, following the rise of crafting during the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Gaza and the growing Palestinian diaspora. The practice has since grown as a non-confrontational yet potent way to express solidarity and anchor individuals to their homeland. <\/p>\n<\/div> The embroidery and the political message it carries has greatly expanded. Workshops have risen in popularity across the UAE, United States, Palestine, United Kingdom and Lebanon teaching the practice and its history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In a forthcoming book, workshop leader, Barakat, explores the impact contemporary artists have played since the 1970s in creating the cultural symbolism and maintaining it around Palestinian embroidery. Particularly, the message of the embroidery on women\u2019s garments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt has a lot to do psychologically with abandonment, this sense of loss and detachment from this mother figure, which is the land,\u201d Barakat said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Using embroidery, Palestinian women have long decorated their thobe (dress) with symbols of history, memory and place. These motifs revealed the identity of the wearer and her connection with the land. \u201cYou have this visual imagery of this woman in the embroidered dress and she represents that. It is tied to how a lot of Palestinians see embroidery, there is a subconscious link to it,\u201d Barakat said, \u201cNarrative Threads: Palestinian Embroidery in Contemporary Art,\u201d will be published in July. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Tatreez is a localized expression, with motifs\u2019 meaning differing based on where the woman lived, whether or not she was married and her natural environment. However, following the establishment of the Israeli state and displacement of thousands of Palestinians in 1948, the environment tatreez existed forever changed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou have about a decade where it’s about survival,\u201d Barakat said. \u201cThe embroidery isn’t really a relevant conversation. Where are you gonna get your next meal? Where are you gonna get clean water?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the 1960s, because of women from different villages exchanging styles and motifs in refugee camps, a new meaning of tatreez was created that represented a national consciousness rather than village identity. Tatreez was a prominent part of the Liberation Art Movement beginning in the 1970s and continues to be today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Through her work, Barakat aims to raise awareness and foster empathy about the war in Gaza. In her embroidered work, \u201cArticle 5,\u201d she features the West Bank Separation Wall, often called the Wall of Apartheid. She embroidered the wall with the words of Article Five of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stenciled in graffiti-style lettering across the wall. Below, cypress trees line the base and stars fill the sky above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt is sort of this occupation of land, sky, mind, body and spirit,\u201d Barakat said. \u201cAll of these things that are part of being human and the violation of them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n Artist Eman Almahdi, the first tatreez instructor in the UAE founded Tatreez Therapy in which she shares the experiences of Palestinian people, \u201cAs a Palestinian living outside Palestine, at least I could have something that I could share with anyone,\u201d Almahdi said. \u201cWe struggle everywhere wherever we move, but we still have a strong, very amazing story to tell.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In her workshops, Alhamdi puts an emphasis on teaching the history of tatreez. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEach pattern has a story and each city has something it is famous for,\u201d Almahdi said. \u201cSo whenever you tell this to someone, they will understand why tatreez is important, why I have to teach it and keep it going for the next generation.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Beyond a work of art, Alhamdi sees tatreez as a form of resistance. She believes that the motif of a tree from Ramallah, similar to a cypress tree in front of most Palestinian homes, is one of the most representative because it is an evergreen tree with deep roots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt never dies unless you cut it,\u201d Alhamdi said. \u201cIt does not give fruits, but the way it stands is strong and forever.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Based in New York City, Lina Barkawi, a Palestinian-Panamian artist, tatreez instructor and activist started her company Lina\u2019s Thobe in 2023. Beyond intimate workshops, Barkawi has given presentations on tatreez at corporations like Amazon and Google. While she believes that tatreez is passive and non threatening, others may not agree.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt’s embroidery and yet it’s become political, not because Palestinians are political, but because Palestinians have been made to be political,\u201d Barkawi said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou’re making a statement regardless, because you are automatically acknowledging Palestinians and Palestine as a concept. In that act, you’re already political.\u201d<\/p>Lina Barkawi <\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At an arts workshop last March in Abu Dhabi, 30 women and men sat around a long, wooden table to learn the ancestral practice of Palestinian embroidery, or Tatreez in Arabic. They were offered common motifs, like flowers and cypress trees, but most gravitated toward a more solemn design, the outline of a gravesite in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":572,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,61,60,57,58,59],"class_list":["post-571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-abu-dhabi","tag-embroidery","tag-new-york-city","tag-palestine","tag-tatreez","tag-thobe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/dispatches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/dispatches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/dispatches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/dispatches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/dispatches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/dispatches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":580,"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/dispatches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571\/revisions\/580"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/dispatches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/dispatches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/dispatches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/dispatches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/dispatches\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Amulet_Joanna-Barakat-1-1024x800.png\")
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