Material Power: Palestinian Embroidery, will explore the historical life and contemporary significance of the Palestinian embroidered dress.
Although an ancient craft, embroidery remains the paradigmatic cultural material of Palestine today and its most prominent living tradition.
This exhibition is open to the public from Friday 24 November 2023 and is running until 7th April 2024. It is being held at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Oxford Road, in Manchester.
Palestinian dress differs from one region to another and according to the occasion on which the dress is worn. In the north where wheat is grown, ears of corn were the most important characteristic of the dresses.
In Hebron and Bethlehem, the trend was grape drawings.
The color and inscriptions of the dresses differed depending on the occasion. At weddings, dresses differed from casual, everyday ones. Widows wore different dresses as well.
In 2022, Maha el-Saca, a researcher at the Palestinian Heritage Center, explained to Al-Monitor that Palestinians also recognize the cities or villages of women from their dresses.
“The Jaffa dress is embroidered in the form of oranges and the cypress trees that surrounded it, while the Canaanite dress in Jericho had geometric drawings.”
According to Marwan Abu Khalaf, a researcher of Palestinian heritage at Inaash Al-Usra Association, Palestinian embroidery was implicitly known to be Palestinian and incorporates “decorations and drawings dating back to the Canaanite era 3,000 years ago.”
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