Quick take: A short documentary I shot on the Fujifilm X-H2S in July 2024 for Palestinian Traditional Dress Day. A fourth-generation tatreez artist explains the history and meaning of Palestinian embroidery and why she teaches it. I'll reference it in a future video on the history of tatreez.
About This Film
This is a short piece I filmed back in July, shot on the Fujifilm X-H2S. It features a fourth-generation Palestinian tatreez artist talking about the embroidery tradition, and it will be part of a future video I'm making on a brief history of tatreez.
What Tatreez Is
Tatreez is traditional Palestinian embroidery. In the film, the artist traces it back to the Canaanite period and describes it as a form of cultural preservation and pride. Some of what she shares:
Every region has its own motifs. Women in each village embroidered what they saw around them. If a woman grew orange blossoms, orange blossoms might appear on her thobe.
Color carried meaning. She explains that colors could signal a woman's economic and social status. In the south, blue could mean a woman had recently been widowed, while pink and red marked younger women who were ready to marry or newly married.
Embroidery told stories. She describes women stitching their experiences of displacement in 1948 into their designs, surrounding difficult imagery with flowers to show perseverance.
It carried identity when symbols were restricted. She recalls that in the 1970s, when displaying the Palestinian flag was banned, women embroidered its colors into their dresses.
Many regional designs were lost. She notes that around 500 villages were destroyed in 1948, and with them hundreds of distinct regional styles and motifs.
Tatreez as a Livelihood
The artist also explains how embroidery became a source of income for women in refugee camps who had lost the men who supported their families. It helped them feed their children, and communities built schools, workshops and centers to pass the craft down. She speaks about how the war in Gaza has destroyed many of those places and displaced or killed the women who taught there, and why she believes it's more important than ever to keep teaching it.
Learning Tatreez
The Palestinian American Community Center, where this was filmed, offers tatreez classes so the art can be passed from generation to generation. You can sign up for their newsletter to hear about upcoming classes.
