People we'd like to invite to morning tea: Iain Banks

Iain Banks
Source: courtesy The Independent

Here on the Palestine Costume Archive's staff blog we have a post category for "people we'd like to invite for morning tea". These are people we admire, who'd we'd like to spend some time with. From queens to celebrity chefs, over the years we've invited lots of people to take us up on our invite and come join us for our tea break, we even promise to share some home made cakes.  Today we'd like to invite Iain Banks.

As we wrote on Facebook today:

"We were sorry to hear the attached news about Iain Banks, an author who's science fiction novels have brought great joy to our lives. He is also one of the good guys politically, calling in 2010 for a cultural and educational boycott on Israel following its raid on a flotilla of ships carrying aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip. Banks wrote in a letter to the Guardian newspaper that he had instructed his agent to turn down any further book translation deals with Israeli publishers: 

"Appeals to reason, international law, U.N. resolutions and simple human decency mean — it is now obvious — nothing to Israel... I would urge all writers, artists and others in the creative arts, as well as those academics engaging in joint educational projects with Israeli institutions, to consider doing everything they can to convince Israel of its moral degradation and ethical isolation, preferably by simply having nothing more to do with this outlaw state" 

"See his Wiki page for more details. We send our love and prayers to Iain and his family, and thank him again for his political courage and for writing magical novels that challenged and delighted us :)"

Now we know Mr Banks is no longer taking on any public commitments, but that doesn't mean we still can't send out an invite for him to join us for a cyber cuppa in our little corner of the interweb.  And if he can't attend, well no matter, we'll still raise a toast to him. Because his science fiction books especially have brought great joy to our lives over many years, including during some dark moments after the last Gaza trip.  We'd like to reassure him that we will share The Culture with each new friend and new generation. And to promise him that Wiki's List of Culture ships/ names will never stop making us smile.

Iain Banks: thank you :)

For more info:

• An article that explains why Iain Banks tore up his passport :)
• Iain Banks Wiki page
• The Culture - Wiki page
• Full April 2013 statement by Iain Banks
• Iain Banks - Small step towards a boycott of Israel

The most beautiful lady at the Oscars

Source: Huff Post

As we wrote on Facebook:

"The most beautiful lady at the Oscars this year was definitely Soraya Burnat (wife of Oscar-nominated filmmaker Emad Burnat) in her Palestinian embroidered dress. Such a lovely outfit to see on Hollywood's red carpet! :)"

  

We spent a lot of time delightedly checking out Mrs Burnat's outfit.  It comes across as a white and pink ensemble in the photos taken that day, but from closer examination we think the cross stitch embroidery is more red than pink. Which would make this thob quite traditional in style, but with some lovely contemporary features - you can see similar designs currently in fashion in stores like Al Jriri in Ramallah.  There's an awful lot of embroidery in this dress, which means an awful lot of love and hard work went into creating it!

If anyone has a photo of the back of the dress, please please share it with us? The way you "read" a Palestinian dress, it's impossible to have the complete story without seeing the embroidery on the back!

Meanwhile we all agree you can see the most handsome man on the red carpet that night in the centre of the photo below!

More info:

• Five Broken Cameras - IMBD
• Five Broken Cameras - website
• Five Broken Cameras - Wiki
• Five Broken Cameras - Facebook
• Amy Goodman - Israel, Palestine and The Oscars

What our Palestinian cultural heritage research taught us today

meghamama
Mural at al Am'ari Refugee Camp
Photo courtesy: Flikr

This post documents the discussion and research threads that resulted after Palestine Costume Archive staff discovered the photo above on Flikr.  We are posting it so you can see all the interesting threads of Palestinian culture that come together, when we start discussing things here :)

The photo above is of a mural in al-Am'ari Refugee Camp. It was taken by meghamama on 17 March 2010 during a trip to Israel and the West Bank "digging up stories and sharing observations" while a student in "Annenberg's Religion, Politics and Gender reporting class". You'll find more info about the group on flikr. That's a whole different topic for another time!

Our first thread of discussion was to share what we knew of  al-Am'ari.  Wiki says of al Am'ari:

"al-Am'ari Refugee Camp (Arabic: مخيّم الأمعري‎) is a Palestinian refugee camp in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate, located 2 kilometers South of Ramallah in the central West Bank. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), the Camp had a population of 5,719 inhabitants in mid-year 2006. The al-Am'ari camp has 10,377 registered refugees. 

"The al-Am'ari camp was established in 1949 on 90 dunums within the municipal boundaries of al-Bireh. By 1957, all tents in the camp were replaced with cement block shelters. Like most of the West Bank camps, Amari suffers from overcrowding, poor sewerage and water networks. The camp falls in under Palestinian Authority control. 

"The refugee camp has 2 schools, the boys school has 1250 pupils and the girls school has 970 pupils.  The al-Am'ari camp's football team has won the Palestine football championship several times and has been designated to represent Palestine in regional and international competitions"

You'll find more information on UNRWA's website.  What interested us personally on that site was that the original camp provided "tents to refugees from the cities of Lydd, Jaffa and Ramla, as well as from the villages of Beit Dajan, Deir Tarif, Abu Shoush, Nanaa, Sadoun Janzeh and Beit Naballa".

A second thread of discussion began when we realized we were familiar with al Ama'ari because it features in Yazan Khalili's "Colour Correction" series, which was recently displayed in the Australian Centre for Photography's Beyond the Last Sky exhibition:

Yazan Khalili
"Colour Correction, Camp Series #3" 2007
Photo: courtesy 
Beyond the Last Sky exhibition website

Yazan Khalili
"Colour Correction series"  2007-10
The Future of a Promise, Venice Biennale
photo courtesy: here

We spent a long time looking at these works, as well as the rest of the exhibition.  So we wanted to learn more about these works, and keep open the discussion about Palestinian contemporary art, as this was new to some of us.

So what are these works about? Well we have an idea but we think it's put best in this quote from the Edge of Arabia blog:

"The Colour Correction Series explores the idea of losing lifestyle, mobility, freedom of choice and even the ability to dream of a brighter tomorrow. According to Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, these losses lead to a permanent state of emergency, where the possibility of thinking and living in the present becomes impossible. 

"This specific image shows Al-Amari Refugee Camp, located inside/beside/outside Ramallah City. The form of the camp does not represent its economic status, but rather its loss and trauma as a political manifestation that persists due to the continuous emergence of ephemeral homes, contradictory ways of living and unbearably unstable relationships between Palestinians and their surrounding landscape. Altering the refugee camp’s colours is a symbolic act. It aims to fill the loss – in the way a child fills the blanks in colouring books – and thus reignite the possibility of hope. Here Yazan Khalili attempts to appropriate an urban landscape that reminds us of the tragedy – of their existence and our disappearance – in order to subvert memory into a desired future."

We think the artist achieves this brilliantly.  But we were also amused because when we first saw this series of images in Sydney we said to one another "we don't think the artist has altered al-Am'ari's colours. That's just what the graffiti / street artists have painted the refugee camp this week!". Because al-Am'ari's walls always seem to be covered with amazing commemorative art that echoes the
bright colours of Khalili's vision.

This brings us to another research / discussion thread - Palestinian graffiti.  You'll find more photos of al Am'ari murals here, here and here (Al Monitor's photo essay on Palestinian street art). The photographer of the photo above, meghamama, has also taken other photos:

meghamama
Mural at al Am'ari Refugee Camp
Photo courtesy: Flikr

The mural at the top appears in the work of another photographer that you can see here - this photo is taken from further back, which allows us to see this figure shares the wall with Handala.  We love how this mural - all of them, really - portray so much Palestinian political iconography: the map / the key / the colours of the flag / barbed wire / tears of blood / the Arabic slogans etc. But for us, we know we are biased lol - it's all about the strength of this woman standing in her traditional dress holding her house key:

And not forgetting her smiling green eyes:

We also love this one for the magical multicoloured bird the young Palestinian boy is riding:

meghamama
Mural at al Am'ari Refugee Camp
Photo courtesy: Flikr

The Archive has kept an eye on Palestinian street art for years - we've been collecting photos of it since the first intifada thirty years ago, a time when as Juliet Peteet noted in  “The Writing on the Walls: the Graffiti of the Intifada" graffiti first assumed the role of “the silent narrative accompanying acts of resistance [and] … themselves acts of resistance”.  It's a vibrant form of contemporary Palestinian culture and we were very worried no-one was documenting or preserving it.  Luckily these days there's a lot more interest - just google "Palestinian graffiti" or "Palestinian street art" as well as a substantial body of academic publications.

We've also watched with interest as the wall has become a popular spot for international artists. You'll find lots of info about this online, both in regard to the artists creating it and outside organizations like Breaking the Silence Mural and Arts Project who traveled to the West Bank and Gaza to facilitate community art projects:

"Break the Silence Mural and Arts Project works in the intersection of trauma, memory, creativity, resilience and resistance, making visible the connections between struggles for social justice globally and histories that have been obliterated or forgotten. The project aims to engage the public on multiple levels to create potential spaces for critical thinking and action that advances progressive social change. 

"BTS works across movements-  using culture to create alliances as well as perceptual ‘ruptures’ or ‘disturbances’  wherein people have the opportunity to  see connections that they had not seen before, and  to imagine new possibilities.  BTS works in partnership with a wide range of organizations, from mental health programs in Gaza, to environmental organizations, to organizations providing material aid, to those organizing non-violent resistance.  Our ultimate goal is to use culture as an organizing tool to bring people together across movements.  Our cultural products are then used by activists and organizers in their work to touch and move people."

As one example of their current work see this report of their Sabra and Shatila commemorative mural project.

See how much we learned, researching Palestinian cultural heritage today :)

References plus more links that might be of interest:

• meghamama
• meghamama- photos tagged al Amari
• Wiki - al Amari
• UNRWA - al Am'ari
• Yazan Khalili - Venice Biennale 2011
• Edge of Arabia - Yazan Khalili
• ACP - Beyond the Last Sky exhibition - Yazan Khalili
• Handala
• Al Monitor - Palestinian street art
• Palestine Works - Addameer 
• Julie Peteet (1996). “The Writing on the Walls: the Graffiti of the Intifada.” Cultural Anthropology 11(2): 139-159.
• Julie Peteet (2008) "Words as interventions: naming in the Palestine – Israel conflict" Third World Quarterly Volume 26, Issue 1, 2005 pages 153-172
• Breaking the Silence Mural and Arts Project
• Breaking the Silence - on Facebook
• Breaking the Silence - Report of Sabra and Shatila commemorative mural project.
• Sam Kestenbaum  - "Stories on the Wall: Refugees in Ramallah" Tikkun Daily January 25th, 2012 

Images:

Photos: courtesy: meghamama- photos tagged al Amari

Art works: courtesy ACP - Beyond the Last Sky exhibition - Yazan Khalili

History of sequins post on "Threaded"

Great post about the history of sequins on the Smithsonian's "Threaded" blog:

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/threaded/2012/12/a-history-of-sequins-from-king-tut-to-the-king-of-pop/

:)

New acquisition - Sinai bedu thob c.1960s

 Bedu thob - Sinai Desert, Egypt
c. late 1960s-1970s
Palestine Costume Archive collection
Acquired Dec 2012

The former Canadian owner of this Sinai Desert bedu thob acquired it at a Sothebys' costume and textile auction in London during the 1980s.   It came to the Archive's collection via Ebay in late 2012 after her unexpected death, with provenance details very kindly confirmed by her son.

Ebay photo
courtesy the seller

The thob is in excellent condition. We don't think it's been worn much since it passed through Sothebys' hands in the 1980s.

It's constructed in the traditional Sinai Desert bedu manner: made up of several different embroidered panels on black cotton sateen (dubayt or tubayt)) roughly stitched together. 

It's a full length robe slightly flared from the waist, with short sleeves. This style became fashionable in the late 1960s and 1970s - you can see an example of the older fuller style thob with winged sleeves here at the Tareq Rajab Museum in Kuwait.  The 1970s date is further confirmed by the brightly coloured floral and geometric patterns on the materials used for lining hems and around the neck:

 Bedu thob - Sinai Desert, Egypt
c. late 1960s-1970s
Palestine Costume Archive collection
Acquired Dec 2012

 Bedu thob - Sinai Desert, Egypt
c. late 1960s-1970s
Palestine Costume Archive collection
Acquired Dec 2012

 Bedu thob - Sinai Desert, Egypt
c. late 1960s-1970s
Palestine Costume Archive collection
Acquired Dec 2012

The thob is decorated with cross stitch embroidery. Traditionally DMC threads (introduced in the region in the mid-1930s) were used. 

The qabbeh chest panel is small in size - a common feature of Sinai bedu dresses where the embroidery focus was on the lower back panel rather than the qabbeh, which was often concealed behind a burqa, as you can see in the 1960s garments below:

Sinai Desert bedu costumes
in the Palestine Costume Archive's collection
from traveling exhibition
"Portraits without names: Palestinian costume"

This garment's qabbeh is embroidered in solid patterns and bordered with red cotton fabric:

 Bedu thob - Sinai Desert, Egypt
c. late 1960s-1970s
Palestine Costume Archive collection
Acquired Dec 2012

In many cases a favored qabbeh is cut from an old garment and reattached to a new, which appears to have happened here, as the embroidery on the rest of the garment differs in design. 

The sleeves are short and embroidered along the upper arm:

 Bedu thob - Sinai Desert, Egypt
c. late 1960s-1970s
Palestine Costume Archive collection
Acquired Dec 2012

 Bedu thob - Sinai Desert, Egypt
c. late 1960s-1970s
Palestine Costume Archive collection
Acquired Dec 2012

 Bedu thob - Sinai Desert, Egypt
c. late 1960s-1970s
Palestine Costume Archive collection
Acquired Dec 2012

Several type of hem stitch are present:

 Bedu thob - Sinai Desert, Egypt
c. late 1960s-1970s
Palestine Costume Archive collection
Acquired Dec 2012

 Bedu thob - Sinai Desert, Egypt
c. late 1960s-1970s
Palestine Costume Archive collection
Acquired Dec 2012

Embroidery is heavy on the skirt panels, which consist of separate pieces for the front, back and two side sections. The front panel includes geometrical designs as well as non traditional designs chosen from European pattern books.

 Bedu thob - Sinai Desert, Egypt
c. late 1960s-1970s
Palestine Costume Archive collection
Acquired Dec 2012

The complex and detailed back panel of a Sinai bedu thob is the most important, in terms of it's cultural language:

 Bedu thob - Sinai Desert, Egypt
c. late 1960s-1970s
Palestine Costume Archive collection
Acquired Dec 2012

If you compare the back panel of the new thob with the purely geometric back panel of a 1940s thob also in the Archive's collection, you can see the influence of European designs:

Back panel of a 1940s Sinai Desert bedu thob
Palestine Costume Archive collection

The new acquisition's back panel also contains these rabbits:

 Bedu thob - Sinai Desert, Egypt
c. late 1960s-1970s
Palestine Costume Archive collection
Acquired Dec 2012

although they are only on one side as the dress was obviously sold before the embroidery was finished.

 Bedu thob - Sinai Desert, Egypt
c. late 1960s-1970s
Palestine Costume Archive collection
Acquired Dec 2012

The inverted V designs at the top of the side panels are also incomplete:

 Bedu thob - Sinai Desert, Egypt
c. late 1960s-1970s
Palestine Costume Archive collection
Acquired Dec 2012

 Bedu thob - Sinai Desert, Egypt
c. late 1960s-1970s
Palestine Costume Archive collection
Acquired Dec 2012

One side contains human figures:

 Bedu thob - Sinai Desert, Egypt
c. late 1960s-1970s
Palestine Costume Archive collection
Acquired Dec 2012

Is the one on the left misplaced, or just incomplete?!

 Bedu thob - Sinai Desert, Egypt
c. late 1960s-1970s
Palestine Costume Archive collection
Acquired Dec 2012

Some embroidery close ups to finish:

 Bedu thob - Sinai Desert, Egypt
c. late 1960s-1970s
Palestine Costume Archive collection
Acquired Dec 2012

 Bedu thob - Sinai Desert, Egypt
c. late 1960s-1970s
Palestine Costume Archive collection
Acquired Dec 2012

 Bedu thob - Sinai Desert, Egypt
c. late 1960s-1970s
Palestine Costume Archive collection
Acquired Dec 2012

 Bedu thob - Sinai Desert, Egypt
c. late 1960s-1970s
Palestine Costume Archive collection
Acquired Dec 2012

We are really pleased to add this thob to the Archive's collection. We have quite a few Sinai Desert bedu outfits. 

Sinai Desert bedu costumes
in the Palestine Costume Archive's collection
from traveling exhibition
"Portraits without names: Palestinian costume"

At the moment we exhibit them in two of our Palestinian costume touring exhibitions:

Sinai Desert bedu costume
in the Palestine Costume Archive's collection
from traveling exhibition
"Portraits without names: Palestinian costume"

as well as in "Secret Splendours: women's costume in the Arab world", as they relate to all the topics and are also very striking.  We would like to curate an exhibition just on Sinai costumes because they really are quite extraordinary.

Sinai Desert bedu costumes
in the Palestine Costume Archive's collection
from traveling exhibition
"Secret Splendours: women's costume in the Arab world"

Especially when you see the whole outfit together.

Sinai Desert bedu costume
in the Palestine Costume Archive's collection
from traveling exhibition
"Secret Splendours: women's costume in the Arab world"

So hopefully you'll see our new acquisition on display in a traveling exhibition soon :)

Sinai Desert bedu and Siwa Oasis costumes
in the Palestine Costume Archive's collection
from traveling exhibition
"Secret Splendours: women's costume in the Arab world"

Palestinian Film Festival, Brisbane - opening night

From Director Jeni:

We nearly didn't make it to the Brisbane opening of the Palestinian Film Festival.  The freeway was closed due to dreadful crash in which at least one person died (details here). Eventually we were able to get off the freeway and do some skillful driving through Gold Coast suburban roads.  We made it into the cinema just as the lights were going down.

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the program again (we'd attended the same session in Sydney). Especially "No news" which was great when you know the surprise ending and can concentrate on everything that's going on.  And "Man without a cell phone" is just as much a joy second time through.

At the end I had a chance to see what was in the foyer.

There were two 1980s shawal style dresses on display.

Their owners very kindly allowed me to photograph them (although I didn't get a chance to ask their names).

It's always lovely to see the saru design - it was one of the very few designs used throughout Palestine and now often appears on contemporary garments.

 There was also an olive oil tasting stand:

It was lovely to catch up with the organizers of the film festival, and also to finally meet the amazing Amber Hansen.

What a great night.

Do try and attend the rest of the film festival if you can, it's such a great event and well worth supporting. Again huge kudos to Cultural Media for all their hard work in producing and curating the festival.  They do a brilliant job, and it's bloody hard work!

The 6 Flowers - keeping Palestinian traditions alive in Gaza

Some of the Six Flowers’ work
courtesy: Rami Almeghari / The Electronic Intifada

We've been so focused on other aspects of Gaza that we missed this Electronic Intifada story last month by journalist and university lecturer  Rami Almeghari who is based in the Gaza Strip.  

Here at the Palestine Costume Archive we look forward to acquiring and preserving for the future National Museum of Palestine some of the important pieces of contemporary Palestinian heritage The 6 Flowers are creating, as they preserve Palestinian traditions as well as documenting their lives in Gaza via their designs.

We hope everyone reading this will join The 6 Flowers's Facebook page and help spread the word about their work and products.

“Six Flowers” help keep Palestinian handicraft tradition alive, adding modern twist 

Rami Almeghari The Electronic Intifada Gaza City 23 October 2012

They call themselves the Six Flowers. They’re not the regular type of flower you’d find in a garden, but you will find them in Gaza City’s al-Tuffah neighborhood, off an unpaved road.

At their two-story family house, surrounded by fruit trees, six sisters spend most of their time creating handmade embroidery in the Palestinian folkloric tradition but using their own designs and innovations. The sisters are: newlywed Nour, 26; Budour, 23, and a graduate in social studies; Nadreen, 24, an arts graduate; Basma, 20, a community rehabilitation graduate; Aya, 19, medical analysis student, and Hiba, a 17-year-old high school student. 

“My sister Nour recently got married and we would have loved that most of her newly-furnished home should contain handmade decorations from our Palestinian folklore. We made some towels decorated with colorful beads and some bathroom things like the mirror frame and many others like a box of spoons that is made of wood and some colorful beads,” explained Budour Nahid Shushaa, who runs the sisters’ “Six Flowers” Facebook page. 

Nadreen, with her arts background, takes the lead in designing patterns for the various items the women make — from cushion covers, table cloths, wallets and purses, trays, slippers, baby booties and blankets, picture frames and unique pieces depicting images and messages. She also carefully selects the wool and colors and prepares the material. 

“For the past eight years, we have been working at home, using it as means to achieve something for ourselves and also to use our time in useful activities,” Budour told The Electronic Intifada. “In summer, for example, we as school girls didn’t have much time or chance to go outdoors, so we wanted to do something useful. While we were sitting right in this balcony, we decided to create a Facebook account with the name Six Flowers.” 

Nour, who studied computer science, recently told a Gaza TV show that part of the reason the sisters kept at the work was because even with their university educations the unemployment situation made it hard to find positions their qualifications would be useful for. But even after Nour found work, she kept her commitment to the project. 

Although the sisters have been making their wares and showing them around Gaza, they saw the Facebook page as a way to reach even more people. The page displays images of some of the sisters’ intricate embroidery and videos of TV interviews they have done.

Budour, Nadreen and Basma Shushaa
courtesy: Rami Almeghari / The Electronic Intifada

Work and identity 

Many people in the Gaza Strip prefer handmade items and exchange them as gifts. “Sometimes our relatives who live abroad, such as in the Gulf countries or Western countries like the US, buy some handmade gifts from us,” said Budour, who handles media inquiries for the sisters. “Last year our uncle bought some gifts from us and we were happy that our works were shown in the US.” 

“This [work] represents for me both an identity and a hobby,” said high school student Hiba. “There is nothing more beautiful than our own Palestinian cultural heritage of handmade works and decorations,” she said as she showed off some of her creations (including contemporary adaptions such as mobile phone cases) to The Electronic Intifada. 

Many of the sisters’ works, including images and symbols for local organizations, are displayed on the walls of the living room of the house of their father, Nahid Shushaa, which doubles as their workshop. 

“This image that includes a key belongs to one of the local organizations, called Rajeen [We are Returning],” said Aya, gesturing to one of the creations. “When we were asked to create a symbol for that NGO, we thought of the key, which symbolizes the return to our homeland.” 

Aya also contributed a fabric creation which depicts a ship bearing the Palestinian flag. “This represents for me the ships of peace convoys, which attempt to break the Israeli siege,” Aya explained. “I was actually inspired [to make it] by the Israeli attack on the flotilla in 2010.” 

Intricacy and difficulty 

“Sometimes a piece of work takes us about two months,” Nadreen said, but “sometimes, while we are in the middle of the work of something, we find out that a certain color of a string used in the making is lacking in the local market, so we always make sure that all raw materials needed are available beforehand.” 

Other challenges she said the sisters face are the lack of special exhibitions in Gaza to sell such work. “Some of the works we make here are embroidered laptop covers. We thought of that as a way to combine modern technology and folkloric tradition. But the price for this is too high for many people, simply because we need to send such covers, and other items to specialized people who can add important touches to them.” 

Looking forward 

The Six Flowers dream of having a place like a workshop to make their own things in and of exhibiting their works in different parts of the Gaza Strip. “We’d like to train other women, including widows, impoverished women and university graduates who can’t find work, on how to make such folkloric works, so that they can rely on themselves in the future,” said Budour. 

“However, we lack a space for that and also we lack a space for our own work, or a place where we can exhibit. Once we had a corner within a local university’s exhibition and this worked well as some visitors bought some of our work,” she explained. 

Inspiration and support from family 

Nahid Shushaa, father of the six sisters and a retired Palestinian Authority construction official, is proud of what his daughters have achieved. “I give them full support to the extent that I helped them get driving licenses and I let them use my own car to bring material or take part in exhibitions. Bringing up your daughters to be strong is the best way to let them never worry even in the worst circumstances,” said Abu Mustafa, who has a 16-year-old son called Mustafa, as well as his six daughters. 

While the women work, their grandmother, Umm Nahid, now in her eighties, and originally from Nablus in the West Bank, is always nearby. “During my youth in Nablus and before I moved to Gaza back in 1945, I used to be such a talented embroiderer, just like the girls,” she said. “I recall that I used to be very selective in colors for the various decorations and arts from our Palestinian folklore,” she remembered. “Up to this moment, I help with the girls’ works by helping them coordinate the various beautiful colors.” 

With their family’s encouragement, the Six Flowers are ensuring that a Palestinian tradition flourishes and finds new forms. 

You can also check out their TV video here  (in Arabic :) )