“Palestinian Thread and Stitches: A Tapestry of Home and Diaspora stitches together the tatreez artwork of twelve Palestinian Women living in Western Australia, diverse in their life histories but united by the common threads of identity. The result is a vibrant tapestry of contemporary Palestinian culture.”
Common Thread is a collective of creative Palestinian women formed in 2019 in Perth, Western Australia. The Collective is dedicated to enriching Palestinian cultural traditions and celebrating the diversity of contemporary Palestinian society, bound together by the common thread of identity. I am proud to be one of the founding members of Common Thread.
For the Collective’s first project, and through the Palestinian Community of Western Australia Inc. (PCWA), we applied for a Lotterywest ‘Dream Plan Do’ grant in 2019 and we were successful in securing a grant of $18,760. The project had a call out for interested participants from the local Palestinian community. A total of twelve Palestinian women in Perth, including the seven original members of Common Thread, worked together on this project. The project comprised a series of community engagement workshops centred around tatreez. Tatreez is the traditional Palestinian embroidery that has been practiced for centuries in homes and villages across historic Palestine. The workshops were facilitated by lead artist, Sabrina Odeh, and we each endeavoured to find tatreez patterns unique to the Palestinian regions we originated from. Some sessions also focused on creative writing, facilitated by Dr. Samiha Olwan. The participants worked with Samiha on writing creative pieces that were inspired by their tatreez work. These written stories, along with photo documentation and supporting material, was then published in a 54-page art catalogue. This publication also featured reflective writing by Sabrina Odeh, Samiha Olwan, Hiba El-Farra and Samya Jabbour. The publication was edited by Dr. Samiha Olwan and Samya Jabbour and designed by myself. We have had many requests for the publication from Palestinian women in the diaspora around the world.
Along with the publication, the main outcome of this project was an exhibition titled “Palestinian Thread and Stitches: A Tapestry of Home and Diaspora” which was exhibited at Midland Junction Arts Centre in Midland, WA and opened on International Women’s Day 8th, March 2020. The exhibition main piece was the combined tatreez of the twelve individual pieces created during the workshops. The final piece was assembled with the help of professional textile conservator Patricia Moncrieff. The exhibition also had a series of photographs documenting the process and the twelve individual writing pieces and photographic reproduction of the tatreez pieces.
Along with being one of the participant-members in this successful project, I worked on the photographic documentation of the workshops. The photographs were featured in the publication and also printed and displayed as part of the exhibition. I have designed the exhibition’s ephemera and merchandise including: posters, flyers, bookmarks, postcards, greeting cards and fridge magnets.