Loading ...Oxford festival unlocks breadth of Palestinian culture
Anyone whose history lessons featured the Bayeux Tapestry – the 72-meter-long narration of the Norman conquest of England in 1066 – will recognize the purpose behind the Palestinian History Tapestry.
This spectacular artwork, in the words of the project website, tells “the story of the villages and towns, and the life and times of the indigenous people of Palestine.”
It joins a list of history tapestries which – as well as the Bayeux example – includes more recent works such as the 126-meter Keiskamma Tapestry which tells the story of South Africa’s Xhosa people.
Embroidered panels in the Palestinian History Tapestry include folkloric depictions such as lines of dabke-dancing men, as well as women carrying and eating vast plates of mussakhan. But they also feature Hanthala, the refugee boy of Naji al-Ali’s cartoons; Gaza fishermen; Arabic calligraphy; scapes of cities such as Safed which lie in present-day Israel, and many more aspects of the Palestinian story.
The tapestry is a joint project between Palestine solidarity campaigners in Britain and artists and women embroiderers from communities throughout historic Palestine.
The ideas and designs for the panels have been assembled through a long process of research and discussion with groups in Palestine, the diaspora and refugee camps.
Some panels have been embroidered by women’s groups, including those from al-Amari refugee camp in Ramallah, Atfaluna Society for the Deaf in Gaza, and groups in the Naqab and Galilee regions. Other sections have been worked on by individual women; one was embroidered by Samar al-Hallaq, who was killed along with her two sons and unborn child during Israel’s 2014 attack on Gaza.
Source: electronicintifada.net