Narrative Threads is Barakat’s comprehensive look at the tradition of tatreez — its meaning, its influence, and its appeal. Published by Saqi Books, it takes a historically undervalued art form (embroidery and textiles are often written off as feminine-coded “crafts”) as an entry point into a historically undermined political struggle. Rather than only looking to the past, though, Barakat is interested in the art form’s current technical and symbolic uses across a range of practices.
The images include portraits of women under olive trees or in orange fields in Jaffa by Sliman Mansour, who co-founded the League of Palestinian Artists; collages of Gaza landscapes from Hazem Harb; manipulated archival photos from Sary Zananiri that question “how archaeological or ethnographic knowledge is generated”; the kaleidoscopic floral prints of Steve Sabella; and the colossal embroidery installations of Samar Hejazi, whose work is shown on the book’s cover.
