Narrative Threads

Palestinian Embroidery in Contemporary Art

By: Joanna Barakat

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Hardcover | 26 November 2025

At a Glance

Hardcover
256 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
27.6 x 21.8 x 3.4

Hardcover

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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.

About the Author

Joanna Barakat expresses her deep-rooted connection to Palestinian culture through her self-reflective artwork, which combines painting and embroidery. Her artwork has been exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London and the American Museum Katzen Art Center in Washington DC.

Complementing her art practice, she shares her passion for Palestinian embroidery by teaching workshops and through her Instagram page, The Tatreez Circle. Born in Jerusalem and raised in Los Angeles, she currently lives in Abu Dhabi.

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