Maraya Art Centre, Al Qasba, Sharjah, has just brought the curtains down on SILA. All That Is Left to You, a landmark exhibition dedicated to the cultural language of Palestinian embroidery, tatreez. Curated by Cima Azzam (Maraya Art Centre), Noor Suhail (1971 – Design Space), and Rula Alami, Founder of SILA exhibition series, it brought together twenty-five contemporary artists and designers.
The Arabic word sila means “connection”; the exhibition highlighted the threads that bind past to present, heritage to innovation, and personal stories to collective identity. Tatreez offers not only income and purpose, but in times of adversity, especially amid the ongoing devastation in Gaza, it is an act of survival and defiance, stitched thread by thread against the threat of erasure.
The walls of the space were painted grey, the colour of cement dust and smoke after bombardment, embodying the brutality of Gaza’s destruction. But against the grey, colour emerged as resistance, with flourishing red threads, green leaves and golden inscriptions, each asserting life, even inside the dust.
Hazem Harb’s showed the portrait of a Palestinian woman in Places and Existence. Her face seemed to dissolve into the surrounding grey. Abdel Rahman Katanani’s Our Mothers and Sisters, anchored the viewer in the reality of a refugee camp. Aya Haidar’s Resistance series carried four handkerchiefs, Tatreez, Cooking, Water, and Olive Groves, embroidered with scenes from everyday Palestinian life, transforming the handkerchief into an act of defiance. In her second work, Rooted, the scent of zaatar (used to flavour food) was released, the aroma evoking the hills of Palestine and its kitchens.
Liane Al Ghusain’s Temple of Steadfastness was an embroidered map of endurance and her Womb Amulets were reimagined as emblems of resilience. Together, the works explored the idea of steadfastness. Farah Behbehani’s Remembrance series consisted of five embroidered panels, each representing a medicinal plant from the Levant - ḥarmal, ‘akkoub, summaq, ghār and za‘atar - reminding one that resilience in Palestine is as much ecological as it is human. In Stitching Unity, Hazem Harb linked fractured histories. Omarvis’s The Mantle of Justice draped the wall like a ceremonial robe, a garment worn by generations. Areen Hassan’s Weaving the Land Back, recalled the geography of terraces and valleys, in a map of yearning for the land.
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