On September 21, 2025, the Maraya Art Centre opened the doors to SILA. All That Is Left to You—a landmark exhibition dedicated to the living tradition of Palestinian embroidery, known as tatreez. Running until January 5, 2026, this isn’t just an embroidery show.
It’s a powerful celebration of heritage, resilience, and creativity—where threads become stories, stitches become voices, and tradition finds new life in the hands of over 25 contemporary artists and designers.
Palestinian Tatreez: More Than Decorative Embroidery
Tatreez has been passed down for centuries, mostly through the hands of Palestinian women. At first glance, it may look like decorative stitching, but each motif carries a message. It’s a visual archive of village life, memory, and history. Every pattern tells where someone is from, what they’ve lived through, and how they resist erasure.
Today, this embroidery is more than art—it’s survival. Especially for Palestinian refugee women, tatreez offers livelihood, dignity, and a way to keep cultural continuity alive despite displacement. Amid the devastation in Gaza and beyond, every stitch is an act of defiance.
Diversity of Mediums and Voices in SILA
SILA. All That Is Left to You brings together a wide spectrum of creative practices. Several works were developed with embroiderers from the the Inaash Association in Lebanon, ensuring that the hands and voices of Palestinian refugee women remain central to the narrative.
The curators describe tatreez as a “dynamic design language,” and the exhibition proves it. The works move beyond textiles into painting, sculpture, and multimedia, expanding the possibilities of what embroidery can express.
Together, these diverse approaches and voices bring tatreez into dialogue with contemporary art, creating a layered exhibition that honors heritage while opening space for new forms of storytelling.
“Hands off My Zaatar” by Bokja Collective: Food as Resistance
One of the most memorable works comes from the Bokja collective, who drew inspiration from Mahmoud Darwish’s poem Think of Others. Their tapestry, titled “Hands off My Zaatar,” weaves food, memory, and resistance into a single fabric.
It’s a celebration of zaatar as more than a flavor—it’s a ritual, a legacy, and a way of gathering. In this piece, cooking and sharing food become acts of defiance, reminding us that to keep recipes, traditions, and flavors alive is to resist cultural erasure.
Zaid Farouki’s Reinterpretation of the Shatweh of Bethlehem
Another standout is designer Zaid Farouki’s contemporary take on the Shatweh of Bethlehem, the traditional married village woman’s headdress. Historically, Palestinian women would stitch silver coins into their shatweh as a way of safeguarding their savings. Farouki reimagined this practice with coins crafted by local silversmiths, adding layers of meaning through details like the Key of Return—a potent symbol of Palestinian memory and hope.
The fabric itself was sourced from Syria, acknowledging the intertwined heritage of the region and the historic textile trade. What emerges is a striking modern work that bridges finance, fashion, and resilience, while honoring a centuries-old tradition.
The Cultural Significance of SILA Exhibition
At its heart, SILA isn’t about nostalgia. It’s about showing that tatreez is alive, evolving, and speaking directly to today’s realities. By working with contemporary artists, the exhibition makes it clear that this heritage isn’t frozen in the past—it’s still shaping identity, resistance, and art now.
In a time when Palestinian voices risk being silenced, exhibitions like this stitch together memory and resilience. Each thread is a reminder that identity cannot be erased, no matter the struggle.
Closing Stitch
SILA. All That Is Left to You is more than an exhibition—it’s a conversation across time. It’s women teaching their granddaughters, artists reinterpreting tradition, and stitches forming bridges between memory and future. In every work, there’s defiance, beauty, and the unshakable belief that culture, like embroidery, is made to endure.
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