Narrative Threads: Palestinian Embroidery in Contemporary Art

For centuries, Palestinian women wrote the stories of their lives and land with a needle and thread. Their embroidery, or tatreez, inspired hundreds of artists who reinterpreted and transformed it into a symbol of Palestinian identity, steadfastness and resistance.

Narrative Threads celebrates the immense beauty and significance of Palestinian embroidery in contemporary art. Joanna Barakat documents and features more than 200 works by twenty-four established and emerging artists, who incorporate the motifs and symbolism of tatreez across diverse media – from painting, sculpture and textile to film, photography and street art. While some artists preserve traditional forms, others transform tatreez to explore themes of displacement, resilience and belonging. Together, their works offer a dynamic reflection on Palestinian heritage and identity.

With insightful essays by leading art historians Dr Tina Sherwell, Wafa Ghnaim and Rachel Dedman, Narrative Threads reveals the power of Palestinian embroidery as a visual language that recounts the past, connects us to the present and envisions a different, hopeful future.

Reviews

'An impactful account of the role tatreez plays as a tool of cultural affirmation and resistance [...] What truly resonates, amidst the myriad ways in which artists have sought to incorporate a piece of their homeland into their art, is the way in which tatreez in its contemporary expression echoes the resilience of the Palestinian people.' --Canvas Magazine