Keeping you informed about Palestinian cultural heritage research, and our work here at the Archive

Keeping you informed about Palestinian cultural heritage research, and our work here at the Archive
Showing posts with label Museums in Palestine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Museums in Palestine. Show all posts

Saturday, October 18, 2014

About our lost exhibition. And sumud. And hope.

"Symbolic defiance: Palestinian costume and embroidery since 1948"
exhibition title panel installed at WOCMES, Mainz, Germany
(First World Congress of Middle Eastern Studies)

A couple of months back we mentioned our lost exhibition on our Facebook page in regard to a newsletter article by The Palestinian Museum about lost Palestinian art exhibitions.  In response to that a few Education Officers have asked for up to date info about the lost exhibition. So, as we are coming up on the 11th anniversary of it's loss, we thought we'd make a post.

"Symbolic defiance: Palestinian costume and embroidery since 1948" was the Palestine Costume Archive's third traveling exhibition. Curated in 2001, it was unique - the first museum quality exhibition of post 1948 Palestinian costume and embroidery, it's display material primarily drawn from the Archive's collection, the Archive being one of a very small handful of museums worldwide to collect and acquire post 1948 Palestinian cultural material.

The Archive began it's traveling exhibition program in 1995 with the extremely successful "Portraits without names: Palestinian costume" exhibition,

"Portraits without names: Palestinian costume"
installed at Museum Victoria's Immigration Museum

which:
"features over 200 years of Palestinian design, and examines how traditional costume and embroidery have long reflected the culture and identity of the Palestinian people. It remains the only exhibition of Palestinian cultural heritage available on the international museum travelling exhibition circuit. 
"Portraits without names: Palestinian costume"
installed at Museum Victoria's Immigration Museum  

"Curated originally for display in regions worldwide with Palestinian communities, Portraits without names is designed so that examples of cultural heritage held by the nearest community, or material held in nearly museums, can be incorporated into the display...."

Wedad Boutagy, a member of the Sydney Palestinian community,
stands in front of an exhibition exhibition graphic showing her
in a Jerusalem studio photograph as a young woman,
at the opening night of the Archive's travelling exhibition
"Portraits without names: Palestinian costume" at the
Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, 1996.  The story of the Boutagy family
 was one of the diaspora stories told in the Sydney installation of the exhibition
 (courtesy: Powerhouse Museum).

With "Portraits" still touring and to counter the anti Muslim / Arab post 9/11 environment the Archive curated  "Secret Splendours: women's costume in the Arab world":

"Secret Splendours: women's costume in the Arab world"
installed at Museum Victoria's Immigration Museum

The exhibition was reviewed in Newsletter - East Asian Art and Archeology Issues 57-70:
"this exhibition of breathtaking costumes and textiles covers a cross section of the arab world, including Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, UAE, Kuwait, Oman, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. It features historical and contemporary examples of costumes worn by urban, village, oasis and bedouin women. Among the most striking are heavy silk floss embroidered wedding outfits from Siwa Oasis in Egypt, ornate cross stitched bedouin dresses from the Sinai Desrt and lavish, gold sequinned festive over dresses from the gulf region"

"Secret Splendours: women's costume in the Arab world"
installed at Museum Victoria's Immigration Museum

With our third exhibition we wanted to return to the topic closest to our heart.  "Symbolic defiance: Palestinian costume and embroidery since 1948" was curated with several goals in mind:
  • it focused specifically on post 1948 costumes and textiles. Until this point museums very rarely acquired or displayed Palestinian costume produced after 1948.  Because Palestine had ceased to exist in 1948 it was believed any contemporary cultural material was inferior and not worthy of being preserved in a museum. But we knew that those "inferior" costumes and embroideries had important stories to tell. 
Palestinian political textiles on display in
"Portraits without names: Palestinian costume"
installed at Museum Victoria's Immigration Museum 
  • While certainly there was a selection of these important works in our first traveling exhibition this was the first time Palestinian "intifada" political textiles had been displayed in some depth
Chest panel of an intifada “flag” dress
Palestine Red Crescent Society's
Al Amal Rehabilitation Centre Embroidery Project, Khan Younis, Gaza Strip
(collection: Palestine Costume Archive, Canberra)

  • The exhibition was also accompanied by a range of embroidered products from the refugee embroidery projects that featured in the exhibition, so acted as both promotion and as a fundraiser for those projects.
Deaf Palestinian refugees embroidering furniture covers
 at the Palestine Red Crescent Society's
 Al Amal Rehabilitation Centre embroidery project,
Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, 2000 
(photo: Jeni Allenby)
  • the exhibition could easily be adapted for low budget display for Palestinian diaspora communities / international academic conferences  / political activist organizations venues
The following blurb went up on our website:
"Symbolic defiance reconstructs the last half century of Palestinian cultural history, bringing to life the almost complete loss of that heritage after the events of 1948, and documenting the extraordinary revival of Palestinian costume and embroidery that occurred in the late 1980s. 
"The exhibition examines the establishment of Palestinian refugee camp embroidery projects and the effect of this upon embroidery's traditional role in Palestinian society. It also documents the development of Palestinian village life, including traditional dress and embroidery, as a nationalist symbol, and explores how women’s traditional costume became one of the dominant representations of Palestinian cultural identity. 
"The exhibition includes material never before displayed, including examples of traditional dress styles from the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, as well as rare intifada dresses and political embroideries, many on loan from Palestinian refugee camp and village embroidery projects in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon...."
Abdel Rahman al-Muzaye 
a PLO postcard from the 1970s showing a Palestinian woman
 in traditional dress with agricultural implements, symbolically
 supporting her (pre 1948) village
(Palestine Costume Archive collection) 

The checklist included:
  • examples of embroidered clothing during the decades since 1948 
  • examples of refugee camp styles
1980s traditional dresses in
"Portraits without names: Palestinian costume"
installed at Museum Victoria's Immigration Museum 
  • examples of political garments and embroideries, most especially intifada dresses and embroideries
Detail from "The Martyr" embroidered panel, 
designed by the ANAT Workshop, Yarmouk Refugee Camp, Syria 
(Palestine Costume Archive collection) 
(photo: Jeni Allenby)
Detail from "The Martyr" embroidered panel,
designed by the ANAT Workshop, Yarmouk Refugee Camp, Syria,
featuring allegorical figures holding symbols of lost Palestine 
(Palestine Costume Archive collection) 
(photo: Jeni Allenby)
  • Palestinian refugee camp embroidery project products
Jordan River Designs dolls wearing traditional dress
 from the Archive's collection in 
"Symbolic defiance: Palestinian costume and embroidery since 1948"
  • Examples of contemporary embroidery from Palestinian diaspora communities
  • Examples of contemporary fine art/cultural expression from Palestinian diaspora communities inspired by Palestinian embroidery and costume
Detail of the chest panel of a 1991 intifada "flag" dress
showing embroidered Palestinian boys with slingshots,
in the colours of the Palestinian flag,
designed by the Anat Workshop, Syria
(photo: Jeni Allenby).
  • original works on paper including 19th and 20th century postcards and photos showing traditional dress plus around thirty posters featuring costume and embroidery motifs
PLO postcard in the Archive's collection

The Archive originally had around fifty posters in it's collection. A selection of thirty were chosen for this exhibition.  We've specifically listed the ones below because there are also copies of these in the Palestine Poster Project Archive so you can follow the link to see a photo of them:
  • Occupied Palestine Magazine: The Dance of Peace - artist Abdel Rahman al Muzain 1979
  • Palestine Red Crescent Society / Palestinian Heritage House series: calendar and posters featuring series of paintings by artist Abd al aal Hassan based on photos from other sources. Some examples: Al Souk and The Wedding (original source is a film still published in Shelagh Weir's "Palestinian Costume" British Museum)
  • UNRWA - series of postcards and posters of traditional Palestinian dress from Widad Kawar's collection in Amman - one example here:
UNRWA -Ramallah dress poster
from poster and postcard series of traditional
Palestinian dress from Widad Kawar's collection in Amman
source

As you can imagine, with this wonderful checklist "Symbolic defiance: Palestinian costume and embroidery since 1948" was a stunning looking - and very informative - exhibition, and very quickly we received requests to display it.

The exhibition's first international installation was at the first World Congress of Middle Eastern Studies in Mainz, Germany.

"Symbolic Defiance: Palestinian costume and embroidery since 1948"
installed at WOCMES, Mainz, Germany
(First World Congress of Middle Eastern Studies) 

We met fellow Australian academic Vicky Mason there (who at the time was Research Associate International Relations and Global Security Curtin University of Technology Perth Western Australia). Vicky later sent us this review:
"One of the highlights of attending the September 2002 World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies (WOCMES) conference in Mainz, Germany, was attending the outstanding Exhibition of "Symbolic Defiance: Palestinian Costume and Embroidery Since 1948" organised by the Palestine Costume Archive in Canberra, Australia. 
"I felt honoured to have been able to see first-hand such a world-class collection of this priceless nature. In the course of my research I have read much about the key role costume and embroidery have played for Palestinian people, and to see such first-rate and unique examples of this work – such as with the Intifada Flag Dresses - was a truly amazing experience for me. 
"Symbolic Defiance: Palestinian costume and embroidery since 1948"
installed at WOCMES, Mainz, Germany
(First World Congress of Middle Eastern Studies) 
"I also have to say that the exhibition was a particular success because of the professionalism of the organiser of the exhibition – Jeni Allenby. In particular her paper "Re-inventing Cultural Heritage: Palestinian Traditional Costume and Embroidery Since 1948" gave a wealth of information enabling the true value of the exhibition to be appreciated. 
"Moreover, I was not the only one who felt this way about the exhibition and Ms Allenby’s paper. Many other scholars attending the conference that I spoke to personally also expressed their appreciation of the exhibition, a notable example being the Palestinian singer and musicologist Reem Kelani. I hope that the Archive continues their wonderful work taking this amazing collection to new audiences across the globe".
"Symbolic Defiance: Palestinian costume and embroidery since 1948"
installed at WOCMES, Mainz, Germany
(First World Congress of Middle Eastern Studies) 

We tried!  After WOCMES we were contacted by several venues and in 2003 an American tour was organized. As we later advised Electronic Intifada the exhibition:
"was to have been displayed in the United States at the MESA 2003 (Middle East Studies Association annual conference) in Anchorage and the Arab Festival in Seattle...
"However on 1 November 2003 the exhibition (which was being couriered over to MESA 2003 by the Archive’s director) was taken for a security check/ x-ray at Los Angeles airport’s Terminal 4 and has not been seen since. All attempts by the Palestine Costume Archive, Qantas, Alaskan Airlines and MESA to locate the exhibition over the last three weeks have totally failed and the search has now been abandoned. 
"The “loss” of this exhibition under such circumstances raises major concerns for all museums and curators worldwide currently proposing to tour Middle Eastern exhibitions to the United States and is a matter that should be further investigated before other such “losses” of Arab or Islamic cultural material occur. 
"For the non-profit, volunteer-run Palestine Costume Archive - the only museum to make exhibitions of Palestinian cultural material available on the international museum traveling exhibition circuit - the loss is devastating and certainly puts in doubt the proposed 2005 tour to the United States and Canada of another popular Archive exhibition, Portraits without names: Palestinian costume, which contains a great many rare and irreplaceable 19th and early 20th century Palestinian costumes on loan from international museums and private collections...."
The "Portraits without names: Palestinian costume" was indeed cancelled.  As we posted on this blog's FAQ page (after discovering during a tour of our storage areas the two exhibition title stick-on wall labels for "Symbolic Defiance: Palestinian costume and embroidery since 1948" for the two venues where the exhibition was to be displayed after the MESA conference):
"Symbolic Defiance: Palestinian costume and embroidery since 1948"
exhibition stick on wall labels for the two venues the exhibit never reached
"It was terribly disheartening when it happened.  I'm just very glad I was the courier. I would have hated anyone else from the Archive to bear the responsibility.  Luckily the loans for the exhibitions were in my hand luggage so at least those were not lost, but everything else was..."
So what happened to our exhibition?  We won't elaborate here other than to say we've been unofficially told that Israeli airport security experts were advising at LAX a lot sooner after 9/11 than the media reports. And ours was hardly the only Palestinian cultural exhibition that's disappeared over the years, as The Palestinian Museum's newsletter article ("simply an initial step towards drawing attention to an issue deserving of far deeper investigation") about 17 lost Palestinian art exhibitions reconfirms:
"Over the past few years, Palestinian artists have participated in a number of exhibitions outside Palestine. Unfortunately, a significant number of these exhibitions are now effectively lost, and the paintings they contained remain unaccounted for. 
"Speculation about the fate of these important works of art abounds; so too do the fingers of blame pointed at various groups and individuals. In interviews recently conducted by the Palestinian Museum, artists have agreed that the loss of many of the works was largely due to a combination of bad organisation and opportunistic misappropriation. If we add this to the shows confiscated or irrevocably damaged by the Israeli authorities, we find ourselves facing a situation that urgently needs to be rectified: these lost works represent an important part of the Palestinian visual history, and it is an enormous shame that they remain inaccessible to the Palestinian public."
We agree.  The Archive very nearly didn't survive the loss of our own exhibition.  While we were very very grateful for the response we received after it's loss (as we wrote in our Press Release update of 10 Dec 03
"the Palestine Costume Archive would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has contacted us regarding our missing exhibition. We greatly appreciate your concern and support. The Archive would also like to thank MESA staff and other conference delegates for their wonderful support and tireless suggestions during the MESA 2003 conference in Anchorage (where the exhibition was to be displayed)") 
you can imagine the enormous resulting expenses related to trying to locate it from Australia /  legal fees etc, plus it was a priority for us to immediately cover the loss of all the embroidered products various refugee embroidery projects had provided for both display and sale.  And of course all this occurred at a time when getting funding was almost impossible, in the post 9/11 environment.

Aware the exhibition was unlikely to be found, we put the call out:
"the Archive has two aims in any further promotion of this matter. The first is to raise international awareness of the exhibition's loss to avoid such a thing happening again. The second is to raise public awareness of our museum’s need for emergency funds to replace both lost cultural material and expensive exhibition support material (such as enlarged graphics, museum banners, wall texts etc)."
And so began the long road to re-curating the exhibition, something that was very important to us and that gave us a reason for not giving up.  We began reacquiring embroidered products from refugee embroidery programs,  put the call out to Palestinians worldwide for help with replacing posters and political ephemera, early postcard etc and also asked that friends worldwide keep an eye out for interesting Palestinian political textiles.

But we then discovered we'd lost our nerve, in terms of touring internationally.  Our lives are dedicated to preserving and documenting Palestinian heritage and we'd caused precious heritage to be lost, no matter how good our intentions.  How could we tour and put more cultural heritage at risk? So for a while, as we noted this blog's FAQ page:
"we cut down our traveling exhibition program and started advising people wanting an exhibition to think about creating their own, perhaps working with an Archive Education Officer."
And that worked well for a few years, while the Archive recovered from this experience - it's not easy as a museum to have experienced such a loss, and to live with it.  Especially in the light of recent events in Gaza, a place that remains close to our hearts.  We drew great comfort from reading Omar Al-Qattan's "In the face of possible genocide, what use is a museum? On Gaza" which came as part of The Palestinian Museum's recent newsletters, and which we'd like to quote in detail here, because it's so important to us as a Palestinian museum ourselves, albeit on a much smaller scale:
"As the world watched in horror the vicious destruction visited upon the people of Gaza over the last weeks ... [at] the Palestinian Museum ... we were left feeling numb and powerless in the face of this carnage... In fact, the Museum team was inevitably left asking itself what a museum could possibly do in the face of such events, and what its role should now be.
We've gone through the same thing, these last dreadful months.
"The Palestinian Museum endeavours to narrate Palestinian history as a means of preserving part of our national collective memory, while reflecting upon, and hopefully learning valuable lessons from, that process. Unfortunately, the Palestinian narrative is one in which examples of attempted social and cultural genocide against our people abound, particularly during the last sixty five years: the Nakba of 1948, in which Israeli forces expelled over three quarters of a million Palestinians from their country and destroyed their villages and towns; the occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the expulsion of a further 250,000 Palestinians in 1967; the 1982 war in Lebanon that killed thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians civilians and ended with the Sabra and Shatila massacre, in which Israel colluded in the murdering of between 800 and three thousand civilians by its Phalangist allies; the brutal suppression of two popular uprisings; confiscation of Palestinian land and water resources; the relentless building of illegal settlements, walls and checkpoints across our land and, last but not least, three military onslaughts on the Gaza Strip since 2008. But is the study and preservation of these historical crimes a guarantor that they will never occur again? And if not, then why build a museum to mark them? 
"One possible answer lies in the notion of sumud, or steadfastness, which has profoundly influenced Palestinian cultural and political discourse and is essential to the thinking behind the Palestinian Museum.
Sumud has also been a foundation stone of the Archive.
"The logic of this notion is that we as Palestinians must continue to build our lives and our institutions in the face of Israeli military might: it is the simplest and most vital form of resistance, a way of asserting our physical presence and cultural vitality on our land, in a situation where the political balance of power is overwhelmingly against us. Part of that process is the preservation of the past, particularly the injustices perpetrated against our people."
"Yet we have seen in recent weeks that what this quiet defiance cannot do is eliminate the possibility that genocide and ethnic cleansing will be contemplated again - in a dark corner, perhaps, of the Zionist movement, faced as it is with its signal failure to rid historic Palestine of its Arab inhabitants and yet still staunchly refusing to recognize their rights within the framework of a just and equitable peace. One can even see the war on the people of Gaza, and the open calls by senior Israeli politicians for the expulsion and even extermination of Gaza’s Palestinians in recent weeks as a brief, if brutal, dress rehearsal for such a scenario. And of course, this is not something a museum can do very much to avert. All it can attempt is to raise awareness among both Palestinians and the world at large that what happened in 1948 can happen again, only this time on a much more cataclysmic scale. It can hope, too, that such awareness might just act as a deterrent to further horrors. 
"The Palestinian Museum must also, surely, provide a platform for Palestinians to reflect upon our own responsibility for the events of the past and present. After all, how history unfolded in the way that it did, and what we might or should have done to change it, are questions that every museum of culture and history would surely like its visitors to ask themselves. Such questions are profoundly empowering: they remind us that we are not merely victims of history, but also, potentially, its agents. And so museums also, in this sense, end by offering hope. In our case, that the Palestinian people are still here, that at home and in exile we continue to make our voices heard and to gain support and solidarity, that our culture is celebrated the world over when a few decades ago it was denigrated and dismissed - surely all this means that the future belongs to us, not to those who seem determined to eliminate us...
 Please read the rest here.  To conclude we'd just like to re-quote that last paragraph, because it inspires us so much:
"museums also, in this sense, end by offering hope. In our case, that the Palestinian people are still here, that at home and in exile we continue to make our voices heard and to gain support and solidarity, that our culture is celebrated the world over when a few decades ago it was denigrated and dismissed - surely all this means that the future belongs to us, not to those who seem determined to eliminate us..."
And who know, insha'allah, if we keep steadfast and strong, one day our lost exhibition may come home :)

Detail of "Orange Tree" embroidery panel,
designed by the ANAT Workshop, Yarmouk Refugee Camp, Syria,
featuring allegorical figures holding symbols of lost Palestine
(Palestine Costume Archive collection) 
(Jeni Allenby)

More Info:
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Thursday, October 17, 2013

Palestinian Heritage Museum, Tulkarm


Murad Shishani reports for BBC News on another small museum keeping Palestinian heritage alive, this time in Tulkarm in the West Bank :)
"Bassam Badran has been collecting Palestinian heritage artifacts for most of his life - but not just for his own enjoyment. On al-Mintar hilltop in the West Bank district of Tulkarm, the 64-year-old has set up the Palestinian Heritage Museum, where his treasured possessions are carefully displayed for all to see. 
"Badran says the aim of the museum is to keep the Palestinian heritage alive. "Theodore Herzl said a very famous sentence and the Israeli policies these days are built on it. He said: 'Every Jew should got to Palestine because we are a people without a land for a land without a people'. He ignored the Palestinian people I will prove to him through Palestinian heritage that the Palestinian people have lived on this land and still live and will continue to do so, God willing," the curator said. 
"The Palestinian Heritage Museum traces the region's long history, from the Greek, Roman and Byzantine periods, to the era of the early Crusades and the British Mandate. One of the more precious items is a lamp used by the 'Orient Express', a train that used to run from Istanbul to Egypt through what was known then as Palestine. 
"They used kerosene or oil to light it up and when they wanted to ask the train to stop, they would signal like so, and when they wanted to ask the train to depart it would signal like so," Badran said as he showed how the light worked. Badran said his collection of newspaper clippings showed Palestinian merchants used to export millions of boxes of oranges before the Second World War, while a gold-plated bell pays testament to another significant historical event. 
"On the Titanic, there were Palestinians. The Titanic sank into the sea and the Palestinians (who were on board) also drowned like the rest. Their family at home heard that they drowned on the Titanic, so they held a memorial service and made five bells and gave them as gifts to schools so they could be rung in remembrance of those who drowned on the Titanic," Badran explained. 
While some of the items on display have little monetary value, they offer a valuable glimpse into the past, showing the old Palestinian currency and passports dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries. 
The devoted collector said that while he received words of support for his museum from the Palestinian National Authority, he had spent over 40 years funding the project himself.
"Anyone who wants to collect heritage items needs to have these three traits: the will to collect, and secondly, the time. I have been collecting since 1972, so time is needed. Also you need money, the monetary issue is important. Imagine that I buy the Palestinian pound for 400-1000 (US) dollars, the 100 pound bill is worth 150,000 (US) dollars or more," Badran said. 
With his unique collection of artifacts, Badran says he is determined to maintain the Palestinian national heritage. And he hopes that one day, his prized museum will be even be recognized by the U.N.'s cultural body, UNESCO.
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Thursday, August 15, 2013

"Silk Thread Martyrs" on the cover of "Textile"

source

We were delighted to find "Silk Thread Martyrs’ on the cover of what was for us a very special issue of "Textile". We'll talk about that issue a bit in another post. For now, we want to remind you of 'Silk Thread Martyrs’:

source

Some Archive Education officers based in London saw the exhibition at The Mosaic Rooms in 2011.  Here's it's original press release :
"To mark London Fashion Week, the Mosaic Rooms will showcase a new collection by one of the most promising young designers to recently emerge from the Arab world, OmarJoseph Nasser-Khoury.
"Silk Thread Martyrs was conceptually inspired by the history and contemporary realities of the designer’s homeland, Palestine. Structurally and technically, the work draws inspiration from the traditional costumes and fabrics of that region and specifically the work of traditional Palestinian embroiderers, many of them refugees living in Lebanon or Jordan, who have maintained and developed the ancient skills of their lost homeland. Nasser-Khoury was inspired by the wonderful quality, rigorous detail and dedication of their work and, whilst creating his own collection, worked closely with them and with other local artisans and craftspeople. The result is a unique collection of outfits for men and women reflecting Palestine’s traditional and contemporary culture and its people: the farmer, the fighter, the martyr, the social worker, the refugee and, above all, the individual.

Silk Thread Martyrs
photography by Tarek Moukaddem
© Omarivs Ioseph Filivs Dinæ

"Silk Thread Martyrs creates a new, transformed and subverted look that explores gender, duty and social constraints. The collection features 22 individual garments, each unique in construction and design and made with the minimum use of machinery: embroidery, fabric, colouring and dyeing is carried out by hand, using natural materials such as indigo and tea. The design and production process of each garment will be explored through the exhibition.
"Omar Joseph Nasser-Khoury comments: “The omnipresence of death in daily life as a result of the Israeli Occupation has thrown society into a perpetual state of mourning. Rather than challenge that reality, the collection actually takes onboard the overbearing presence of loss in our lives and is thus a celebration of death. It flaunts the last thing that Palestinians still own: their doom.”
We thought this curatorial premise intriguing and loved the exquisite images produced by photographer  Tarek Moukaddem.

Silk Thread Martyrs
photography by Tarek Moukaddem
© Omarivs Ioseph Filivs Dinæ
source

There's a great video of the exhibition opening in London. As always at art exhibition openings, hardly anyone is looking at the costumes. But we certainly were.

includes photography by Tarek Moukaddem
© Omarivs Ioseph Filivs Dinæ

We were very interested in getting a close to the works as possible. For us, it was all in the detail, whether it was a panel of embroidery or 

Silk Thread Martyrs
photography by Tarek Moukaddem
© Omarivs Ioseph Filivs Dinæ
source

the raw edging of a garment

Silk Thread Martyrs
photography by Tarek Moukaddem
© Omarivs Ioseph Filivs Dinæ
source

or a thread under tension

Silk Thread Martyrs
photography by Tarek Moukaddem
© Omarivs Ioseph Filivs Dinæ
source

We were inspired by everything we saw. We weren't at all surprised when we heard later the British Museum had acquired an item from the exhibition.  We also weren't surprised when we later discovered Omar Joseph Nasser-Khoury's connection with INAASH in Lebanon.  The Archive first began acquiring INAASH products in the mid 1980s. They were always stunning and innovative - at the time we were documenting their use of silk, pastel shades and beading. As their website states:
"From its inception Inaash has pursued a philosophy of excellence and creativity in design ... mindful of the crucial role of traditional needlework in Palestinian heritage [while] recognizing the outstanding aesthetic impact of this high quality craft when fused with contemporary sensibilities". 
This appealed to Omar Joseph Nasser-Khoury - this quote from an interview with Sue Jones in the issue of "Textile" at the top of this post:
"For the shirts and jackets, I worked with INAASH in Lebanon. I was very keen to work with them ever since I was introduced to their products, so I decided to do my college internship with them in Beirut; this was a year before I actually commenced working on “Silk Thread Martyrs.” I had to make a few phone calls and make use of a few great aunts to get through to the ladies there. I think it was the best educational experience I had during my time at college. 
"INAASH is an important center of embroidery—it was started about forty years ago by a group of Lebanese and Palestinian women, who worked diligently on reintroducing embroidery work among the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. What distinguishes them from almost all the other associations and women’s organizations is their attention to detail, color combinations, quality control, and use of fabrics. The irony is that these particularities were once part of the subconscious of the producers of Palestinian fashion and now they have become an extra advantage. 
"The embroidery motifs are original INAASH arrangements that they were already producing on different items. My favorite two were the hjabat (amulets) and mafateeh njoum (star keys), which we had to alter slightly to adapt to my designs ... INAASH are famous for beading their embroidery, so I decided to carry that through in the work, but instead of the glass and plastic beads, I chose some copper, tin, and amber beads for the jackets..."
An INAASH product was very important in OmarJoseph Nasser-Khoury's own journey of discovery. Back to that interview with Sue Jones from "Textile":
"I live in Jerusalem. Growing up, I was usually making things; embroidery, however, was not something that interested or influenced me—neither my mother nor my grandmother embroidered. I did have an interest in making clothes though, simply because that made me feel I could have more control in terms of what I could wear, but it was just that. When a group of British fashion designers came to Palestine to look for potential and inspiration in traditional dress, I wondered why on earth there were no Palestinians with a similar interest. This, coupled with the experience of seeing a shawl embroidered by INAASH1 in Lebanon that my mother had bought on a trip to Beirut, made me decide to pursue an education in art and design. The decisive moment was when I saw the Palestinian costume collection at Birzeit University Museum. The small collection blew my mind—I had never imagined there was anything as profound or variant in terms of color, style, detail, nuance, and skill as I had seen. 
In retrospect, I feel my decision was rather reactionary and narrow-minded. A lot of it was based on romance and nostalgia and this urge to “salvage and revive.” All the same, I do not think I would have been able to overcome this nonsense without having followed through my decision. Palestinians in Palestine and the shatat seem to be stuck in this place. I have been working on a project involving fashion design and dress and the participants with whom I was asked to share my experiences were very precious about the embroidery. There is this feeling that they are obliged to represent Palestine and the Cause through embroidery—which in turn has become sacrosanct, like a brand.
OmarJoseph Nasser-Khoury then raises several issues very close to our heart:
"You do still see women wearing embroidered dresses in Palestine. Originally and before the Nakba in 1948 and the Naksa in 1967, the majority of women who embroidered did it for their own personal consumption. Embroidery and dress were markers of wealth and social standing. All the same, as richer women became more globalized—and this is seen in towns like Bethlehem—they turned their attention toward European fashions. Now most of the women who embroider do it for others as a means of generating an income. 
"Embroidery charities have been set up throughout Palestine and neighboring countries like Lebanon and Jordan to “empower” refugee women. I personally think this might have been the case forty years ago, but now, in addition to corrupting and bastardizing the art of embroidery, they do little besides maintaining a pathetic status quo. 
"Most of what is produced in the charities is bought in sympathy and support for the Palestinians. The same goes for any creative work on that level. There is an inescapable dynamic of condescension at play here. I think there ought to be an informed and ruthless critique when it comes to the notion of cultural heritage and folklore. Especially when this heritage has become separable from our colloquial daily lives. It is problematic that the arena for Palestinian dress has now become the museum, private collections, coffee table books, and incompetent political discourse, rather than the bodies of Palestinians! 
When the images taken by Tarek Moukaddem for the collection first became public, my aunt sent my mother an e-mail complaining that she saw little of “our beloved traditional costume” in the work. I cannot remember her true words, but she wrote something to that effect. I was bemused. Besides this, the overwhelming reception was laudatory and positive. What I found disconcerting was the automatic redemption of the work because of its Palestinianism. There was an obvious lack of critique when it came to fashion.
He elaborates on this point in an interview with This Week In Palestine:
"There’s been a very positive reaction to the fact that it’s Palestinian, but not enough fashion feedback, which worries me. To be honest I did project a political stance and people liked that, but my main concern is that the work carry the cause rather than the cause carry the work; therefore, I really concentrated on avoiding clichés so that the collection could be valued for its quality and worthiness of process in terms of thought and production. 
Silk Thread Martyrs
photography by Tarek Moukaddem
© Omarivs Ioseph Filivs Dinæ
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Back to the This Week In Palestine interview:
"With the Nakba in 1948 came the death of many things, so this collection is mourning the martyrdom of everything that Palestine has lost since 1948; humans, heritage, style, freedom, costume, identity, the homeland, etc. The work is a rejection of this reality, it’s a protest that says, “Since we are not allowed to own anything, then we’ll own our death.” It’s basically giving the Occupation the V-sign.  
It is also a celebration of Palestinian culture and an attempt at highlighting the breadth, variety, intricacy, and quality of the older Palestinian garments. 
This was basically done through the employment of the “traditional” manual techniques of dressmaking, like stitching, embroidering, fabric manipulation, dying, etc. The point, however, was not to differentiate between the older and the contemporary in terms of traditional versus modern, rather to prove that Palestinian fashion is a continuous flow of innovation and reflection of reality.  
YES!!!!  He continues:
"The aim was to create a collection that would initiate a discussion about the expression of identity through fashion. The garments are indeed physically wearable and comfortable, despite being extreme. However, they are garments that have been conceived to push the limits of what is usually perceived as typical Palestinian fashion, and to stimulate that discourse. 
I’d like to make Palestinians more aware of the existing fashions we have and to take pride in them.  During my internship in 2009 in Beirut with INAASH (Association for the Development of Palestinian Camps), a lady walked into their shop and noticed a detailed photo of a Galilee coat in Shelagh Weir’s book, Palestinian Costume; she assumed it was Indian and didn’t have the slightest clue that it was actually Palestinian. Many people, including Palestinians, don’t realise how rich Palestinian crafts are. The point is rather than sanctify these crafts they ought to be included and enjoyed in daily life. We ought to celebrate this part of our identity as we celebrate our cuisine, our music, and our literature - it’s quite pointless to limit these monumental garments merely to silly wedding celebrations."
You can imagine how delighted we were when Omar Joseph Nasser-Khoury began curating exhibitions of Palestinian cultural heritage.

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The first was Beyond Æsthetics (take a detailed look at it's brilliant poster above):
"an exhibition showcasing the Ethnographic and Art Museum’s Palestinian Costume and Tawfiq Canaan Amulet collections, curated on the basis of the visual symbolism and communication as seen in both collections. It aims to elaborate on how the potentials and possible attitudes, when exhibiting and studying ethnographic collections in a visual context, are virtually unlimited.   With this approach, the Museum hopes to surpass the stiffness of nostalgia and conservatism which seem too often to confine and limit discourse and imagination when cultural heritage is in question. This exhibition comes as part of the 2011 series of events organized by the Museum aiming to bring the contemporary visual arts program closer to the University’s local community as well as to society as a whole, which in turn stresses on the importance of unconfined artistic practice and interaction."
This one sounds like a lot of fun and we are sorry we didn't see it. Next came Mvsevm: Seat of the Muse:

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Again this was an interactive exhibition about breaking down the usual exhibit / audience / curator barriers, exploring:
“the dialogue between designers and museums and how the processes of inspiration, research, and creation interdependently develop. It aims to break down and deconstruct the traditional barriers that have been set up between the audience and the exhibited, inspiration and production, archive and gallery, by bringing all these elements into play within the exhibition space."
Note the word "archive" there along with museum / gallery etc - this was for us like finally meeting someone in the curatorial world that shared our ideas:
"A core team of four individuals - the curator and three assistants - will carry out the project by compiling a body of research based on the manual techniques of construction found in items selected from the Palestinian Costume and Canaan Amulet ethnographic collections. The collated research and information will be used to build a collection of finalized fashion items, which in turn will reflect and investigate contemporaneity and practicality, and the aesthetic potential of these techniques.   
"The physical openness of the space, coupled with the engaging setting, aims to actively involve the audience in the design, research, and production processes undertaken by the design team throughout the duration of the exhibition. Visitors will be able to see the team working in the space and interact with them in whatever capacity both see fit.  
"Concentration will be on how museums and exhibited items can be used by creative individuals as a source of inspiration and information to generate knowledge. The project will look at the dynamic that develops between the exhibited item / artifact and the participants as viewers and creative individuals who will use the information to design and create a product throughout the period of the project.

"The research process, design development, product realization, and audience interaction that take place at the museum will create a workshop space that, in turn, becomes and generates the exhibition itself. This means that the process, information, conclusions, and ideas gathered and developed throughout the project by the exhibition team and the audience are approached and exhibited, as one would approach works of art or ethnographic items - almost as an interactive installation. These will be constantly developing throughout the exhibition and changed in such a way that for an individual viewer the space will never look the same on two different visits...."
Next post we'll talk about the rest of the articles in that issue of Textile. Meanwhile, for now we look forward to Omar Joseph Nasser-Khoury's future endeavours with much interest :)

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