ArabishWay

Tatreez circle + potluck
2025-11-02 11:00 - 14:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Suzanne Zahr, Art & Architecture, 2441 76th Ave SE, Ste 160, Mercer Island, WA, 98040, United States
Sunday 11/2 Tatreez circle + potluck
Come by with your tatreez (or other craft) project, and bring some food to share.
Open to all
(Note: This is not a structured class but the community is always happy to help if you are learning or need help!)
♥️ See you this weekend!
Share with your friends, and DM us if you are able to bring some food to share!
(Reminder: We know it’s Halloween tomorrow, please be thoughtful and no gory or scary costumes)

Kids for Palestine (Olympia)
2025-11-02 13:30 - 15:00, 2025-11-09 13:30 - 15:00, 2025-11-16 13:30 - 15:00, 2025-11-23 13:30 - 15:00, 2025-11-30 13:30 - 15:00, 2025-12-07 13:30 - 15:00, 2025-12-14 13:30 - 15:00, 2025-12-21 13:30 - 15:00 and 2 more dates | Woodruff Park, 1500 Harrison Ave NW, Olympia, WA, 98502
Gather with other families at Woodruff Park, in West Olympia (near the tennis and pickleball courts) every Sunday, 1-4 pm, to support Palestine through conversation and art in a kid-friendly event.

SZ Gallery’s 5th Persian Garden: First Friday Art Walk
2025-12-05 18:00 - 21:00 | SZ Art Gallery, 2441 76th Avenue SE, Suite 160, Mercer Island, WA
SZ Gallery’s 5th Persian Garden is an exhibit that tells culturally rich stories of Persian culture through contemporary and classically-influenced pieces. Monir & Mehdi Ghanbeigy from Iran have created multimedia artwork together since 1970, combining Mehdi’s detailed work with Persian miniatures and painting, Monir’s background in ceramics, and their mutual love for the history of Persian art.
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Monir and Mehdi began working together in Iran before they moved to England for further training at London and Canterbury College of Art. After returning to Iran in 1980, they developed a novel style in ceramics and painting, influenced by both modern art as well as the very rich traditions of Persian pottery and storybook miniatures. They have shown their art at numerous national and international exhibitions, including the 2012 Venice Biennial, and have taught for many years at several universities in Iran and in their private workshop. Their pieces are permanently on exhibit at the Contemporary Art Museum in Iran, as well as several museums around the world.
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#persian #art #paintings #persiangarden #szgallery#mercerisland

March for Gaza Art Show
2025-12-13 15:00 - 22:00 | Pipsqueak Community Space, 173 16th Ave, Seattle, WA, 98122
Community archive of the 25 mile Freedom from the River to the Sea Walk back in May 2024. We’re centering the pre-figurative aspects of community care and autonomous self-organization which were present there.

Virtual Lecture: Ethical Stewardship of Palestinian Dress
2026-01-09 09:00 - 23:00 | Virtual
Ethical Stewardship of Palestinian Dress: Collecting, Cataloguing, and a Case Study
Date: Friday, January 9, 2026
Time: 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM EST
Location: Online, Zoom link will be emailed at 10am EST on event day
Instructor: Wafa Ghnaim, Dress Historian, Researcher & Educator
Registration Fee: Sliding scale
Description: This lecture presents the research and findings of Wafa Ghnaim’s forthcoming article “Archiving the Thobe,” to be published in the Journal of Textile Design Research and Practice (JTDRP). It outlines a reparative framework for the identification, cataloguing, and stewardship of Palestinian dress in American museum collections. Drawing on oral history, regional provenance, and nearly a decade of sustained research with institutions alongside the development of the Tatreez Institute collection, the lecture examines how museum practices and fashion media produced misattribution, decontextualization, and exoticization. It traces how garments were extracted, anonymized, and reframed through biblical and Orientalist lenses, and how these interpretations continue in contemporary digital spaces, priming American and European audiences to adopt dehumanizing views of Palestinians today. The lecture introduces rematriation as a reparative paradigm grounded in Indigenous feminist ethics and matrilineal stewardship. The session invites scholars and cultural workers to cultivate accountable, community-centered practices that safeguard Palestinian cultural heritage in their museum and cultural work.

BIPOC Tatreez Class and Circle
2026-01-17 11:00 - 13:00 | Blue Cactus Press, Tioga Bldg, 1901 Jefferson Ave Office #105, Tacoma, WA, 98402
Come and learn the tradition of Palestinian Embroidery

Material Identities: Regional Dress in Late Ottoman Syria
2026-03-13 09:00 - 11:00 | Virtual
Virtual Lecture Registration

Material Identities: Regional Dress in Late Ottoman Syria
Date: Friday, March 13, 2026
Time: 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM EST
Location: Online, Zoom link will be emailed at 10am EST on event day
Instructor: Wafa Ghnaim, Dress Historian, Researcher & Educator
Registration Fee: Sliding scale
Description: This lecture examines the regional styles of embroidered traditional dress produced within the geographic boundaries of present-day Syria during the late Ottoman period, roughly 1850–1922. It centers on historical garments from various villages, towns, and desert regions across Syria, as well as the textile traditions that shaped them. Participants will learn about Syria’s role as a major center of textile production, including the rise and decline of its fabric industries and the historic cloth types most commonly used in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The lecture surveys distinctive village and regional styles, with attention to materials, structure, and surface design, beginning in the Northern Galilee and extending into southern Syria and beyond.
The presentation draws on surviving garments, visual documentation, and the work of leading scholars in the field of Syrian dress history. This research is informed by the expertise of Aida Dalati, Anne Marie Weiss-Armush, Hanan Munayyer, and other leading collectors and historians in the field. Through this focused visual and historical review, the lecture situates Syrian dress within its social, economic, and cultural contexts, highlighting how regional identity was expressed as a broad regional tradition shared by communities of the eastern Mediterranean over centuries. While many have argued that the cultural knowledge of Syrian dress styles is extinct, Wafa argues that new digital archives led by a new generation are ensuring its survival and revival.

BIPOC Tatreez Circle
2026-03-14 14:30 - 17:30 | KCLS – Burien, 400 SW 152nd St STE 100, Burien, WA, 98166
Bring your tatreez projects and supplies and come stitch with us! If you need a kit, we will have them for $5.

Mercer Island Art Walk: SZ Gallery: I'm Still Alive
2026-04-03 18:00 - 21:00 | SZ Art Gallery, 2441 76th Avenue SE, Suite 160, Mercer Island, WA
Please join SZ Gallery’s final art reception during the Mercer Island ArtWalk featuring Palestinian Artists, Yazan Abu Salameh and Bashar Alhroub.
Come gather for the SZ Gallery exhibit and Ya Hala’s community spirit one last time in this cherished safe space, as we honor what we have built together and gently envision what comes next.

Warm Turkish coffee, teas and Palestinian treats by Ya Hala!

Broken and Beautiful: Art by Gazans
2026-04-11 - 2026-05-11 | Phinney Neighborhood Center, 6532 Phinney Ave N, Seattle, WA, 98103, United States
Phinney Neighborhood Center Community Board, 6532 Phinney Ave. N, Seattle
2nd Floor, 206-783-2244. Hours: Mon – Fri: 9:00 am – 9:30 pm, Sat: 9- 9 and Sun: 1-5.
The art featured is by young people and women who experienced the war and are either still in Gaza or are now refugees in Egypt. Exhibit is sponsored by Seattle Gaza Mutual Aid, a local group which raises money for artists and families through selling their art and collecting donations for the Meera Center, a healing resource which supports survivors in Cairo. See seattlegazamutualaid.org to learn more.

Workshop: Create Your Own Laser-Cut Bookmark
2026-04-25 11:30 - 14:30, 2026-09-26 11:30 - 14:30 | KCLS – Bellevue, 1111 110th Avenue NE, Bellevue, WA, 98004
Design and laser-cut your own bookmark inspired by geometric patterns from Islamic art and architecture.

Tatreez and Tea Virtual Lecture Registration: The Village Series
2026-05-08 09:00 - 11:00, 2026-05-22 08:00 - 17:00 | Virtual
Virtual Lecture Registration: The Village Series

Village Series, Part I
Two Sessions: May 8 & 22, 2026, Friday
Time: 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM EST
Location: Online, Zoom link will be emailed at 10am EST on event day
Instructor: Wafa Ghnaim
Registration Fee: Sliding scale within range
Description:
Until the mid-twentieth century, the dress of the Palestinian people was descriptive of identity; first by societal segment (city dweller, villager or nomad), and then by the region in which the wearer came. Within each regional style, finer distinctions in women’s dress (thobe) were expressed that shared the maker’s life and the natural world around her. Palestinian women recorded their identity in their thobe with embroidery (tatreez) through a shared illustrative language of embroidered patterns, stitching techniques and thread colors. The thobe records unwritten stories and serves as a visual register of collective and individual identities, documenting a woman’s village, tribe or town, her marital status, her familial lineage, and the material impact of colonialism, occupation, war and exile. The regional identity of the woman defines the overall governing style of her thobe, and evidence of identity is largely through her relationship to land.
This course is a consolidated version of a portion of the Village Series, with updates, originally taught across twelve classes. Between 2020 and 2023, Wafa taught 22 cohorts of students. This consolidated version includes the villages and cities noted below, and does not have a stitching component. These are lectures only.
Session 1: Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Tulkarm, Nablus, Tubas
Session 2: Bir Saba and North Sinai, with discussion of other Bedouin styles in historic Palestine
Authored by Wafa Ghnaim
What You’ll Receive:

Live access to both sessions, each 2-hours that include Q&A sessions
A recording for 7 days after the live session

Important Notes:

Tickets include access to both sessions and are nonrefundable.
This is a live virtual event hosted via Zoom. If you are unable to attend live, you may still register to receive access to the recording.
Registration closes at 10:00 AM EST on the morning of the first lecture.
Waiting room closes at 12:30 PM EST.
All participant names should match their registration name.
A Zoom link will be sent to registered participants at 10am EST on event day.
The instructor reserves the right to review and decline registrations at her discretion to ensure a respectful and safe learning environment for all participants.
Camera sharing is required for all attendees.
Interested in learning something? Share your interest here.

The Beauty of Tatreez: Exploring Palestinian Embroidery and Dress
2026-06-15 10:30 - 12:30 | Virtual
Embroidery as language: trace how Palestinian women stitched village identity, lineage, and land into the thobe…

CLASS DESCRIPTION
Until the mid-twentieth century, the dress of the Palestinian people was descriptive of identity; by societal segment (city dweller, villager or bedouin), and by the region in which the wearer came. Within each regional style, finer distinctions in women’s dress (thobe) were expressed that shared the maker’s life and the natural world around her. Palestinian women recorded their identity in their thobe with embroidery (tatreez) through a shared illustrative language of embroidered patterns, stitching techniques and thread colors. The thobe records unwritten stories and serves as a visual register of collective and individual identities, documenting a woman’s village, tribe or town, her marital status, her familial lineage, and the material impact of colonialism, occupation, war and exile. The regional identity of the woman defines the overall governing style of her thobe, and evidence of identity is largely through her embodiment of land.
This lecture will discuss the regional distinctions in dress in historical Palestine during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by city, village and tribe for at least six regions, to include Ramallah, Galilee, Gaza, Bir Saba, Al Khalil, and Bethlehem.
ABOUT OUR LECTURER
Wafa Ghnaim is an art and dress historian, fashion researcher, embroiderer, educator, and the founder of the Tatreez Institute, specializing in Palestinian embroidery and adornment. She is the author of Tatreez & Tea (2016) and THOBNA (2023), with research published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the National Gallery of Singapore. A former instructor at the Smithsonian and Research Scholar at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she now continues her preservation work as a Mellon Foundation Research Fellow at the Museum of the Palestinian People, and a commissioned designer for Victoria & Albert Museum’s Thread Memory: Embroidery from Palestine.
