THE STITCH pROJECT - Hilde Hauan Johnsen

tHE STITCH pROJECT

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the Stitch project
                                                 by Hilde Hauan
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                         A little less lonely
                           by Frans Jacobi
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New Year’s Eve 1990
  by Lene Hansen
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                                The Role of the Arts in a
                                    Time of Change
                                  by Ásthildur Jónsdóttir
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 Palestine’s Heritage:
 A Tool for Change &
  Cultural Exchange
  by Dr. Adel H. Yahya
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Rom8: Gallery for artistic research at Bergen Academy for Art and Design
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the Stitch project                   presentation or lecture for
by Hilde Hauan                       all the people embroidering
                                     around the table. People come
                                     to sit around the tablecloth and
                                     embroider together with us,
                                     they learn to spin wool and pick
The Stitch Project (TSP) was         plants for dyeing yarn. A lot of
founded in 2012 by seven artists     stories are told, a lot of good
from Sweden, Iceland, Palestine,     dialogues appear and sometimes
Brazil and Norway. The project       quietness while working
                                     together is also pleasant.
gathering was at the Sami festi-
val Riddu Riddu1
Troms, Northern Norway in July
2012, and we will have the last      racially, ethnically, religiously, or
event in July 2016, at the 25th
                                     challenge facing civil society today.
years celebration of Riddu Riddu.
                                     We tend socially to avoid engaging
This art project has three main      with people unlike ourselves, and
activities, which we invite every-   modern politics encourages the
one to join in on. We embroider      politics of the tribe rather than of
on a 10-meter long tablecloth,       the city. In this thought-provoking
we spin local wool and we dye        book, Richard Sennett discusses why
with plants from the area we
visit. We also look into political   be done about it.
or cultural issues and invite        Sennett contends that cooperation
experts and artists to give a        is a craft, and the foundations for

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skillful cooperation lie in learning to   industry and got a lot of wool to
listen well and discuss rather than       spin.
                                           We met local spinners and
people can cooperate online, on           weavers. They have a long
street corners, in schools, at work,
                                          tradition of yarn spinning, using
and in local politics. He traces the
                                          just the natural color from the
evolution of cooperative rituals from
medieval times to today, and in           sheep and weaving very special
situations as diverse as slave            blankets, “Grene”, on the oldest
communities, socialist groups in          looms known (in Norwegian:
Paris, and workers on Wall Street.        oppstadvev)2.
Divided into three parts, the book
addresses the nature of cooperation,
why it has become weak, and how it
                                          cultural festivals in Norway, we
warns that we must learn the craft        have been travelling to
of cooperation if we are to make our
                                          and Gaza. In Palestine we met
for the capacity for cooperation is       artists, locals and Bedouins.
embedded in human nature.                 The Bedouin women taught us
 Richard Sennett; Together: The           to spin with their wool and in
Rituals, Pleasures, and Politics of       their tradition, we shared the
Cooperation                               knowledge and joy of spinning.
                                          We learned about their lives and
                                          how they struggle to survive
At Riddu Riddu in 2012 we                 with the Bedouin way of living in
invited the founder of the                the Middle East, surrounded by
festival, Lene Hansen, to tell the        heavy political issues.
story of the festival, about the           We met with artists in
philosophy, the political issues          Jerusalem, Ramallah, Hebron
and cultural strength this fes-           and Haifa. We spent a day with
tival has brought to the Sami             students at the Art Academy in
people along the coast of                 Ramallah. They embsroidered
Northern Norway.                          on the tablecloth and told about
We visited the smallest wool              their studies and how it is to live
carding factory in Norway,                on the West Bank, with the wall
learned about a small-scale               between the West Bank and

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Jerusalem (and Israel), a city           three weeks and created a space
with great importance for the            for discussions and
Palestinian people. We met               interest in the stitch project
with a women group in Rantis, a          both from colleagues and the
small Palestine village                  public. A lot of people came
surrounded by Israeli                    by to sit and embroider on the
settlements. The women in                cloth and talk with us. We had
Rantis make their living of              invited four Palestinian artists
embroidery. They shared stories          to show art works together with
from their lifes with us.                two from our own group, in
                                         addition to the 10-meter long
                                         tablecloth and spinning
Art is and should continue to be the     facilities. These are just a few
                                         examples of all the meetings,
any commission or commissioner,          exhibitions and performances
and irrespective, in particular of any   we have joined, been invited to
                                         and/or have created ourselves. It
of power…even though place still
                                         has been many more.
determines and is determined by
                                  -
periences reality and designates new
places and prospects for                 A stitch is a named thing and stitch-
another history.                         ing is a named thing and stitching
Denys Zacharapoulos 3                    is an action, like speaking, through
                                         which the thing is brought into the
                                         space of encounter along the endless
                                         chain of manifestation of stitching,
We have been to the RELATE               whether verbal or material, denota-
north symposium in Iceland with          tive or connotative.
presentations and an exhibition4.        Victoria Mitchell 5
We were invited to join the
International Theatre festival
“Peripheral stories” in Dale, on         1
                                             http://riddu.no/nb/om-festivalen
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the west coast of Norway. In
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                                           Denys Zacharopoulos
June 2013 we opened an                   4
                                           Relate North
exhibition in ROM 8, the gallery         5
                                           From “Dialog Stitching with Metonymy” by
at Bergen Academy of Art and             Victoria Mitchell
Design. The exhibition lasted for

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Alaa Albaba: Al Almari (painting on photo)

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TSP- group

Omaya Salman (1987) graduated from the International

her MA-program in Toulouse. She is questioning the topic of
terrorism in her artworks.

Kiyoshi Yamamoto (1983) is born in Brazil and lives in Bergen. He
works with huge paintings, where he shows and discuss the
borderline of paintings, sculpture and textile.

Marie Skeie (1980) lives and works in Bergen. She has lived most of
her life abroad in Japan, Brazil and other countries. She speaks six
languages and in her artwork she use languages and her
international experience.

Margrethe Brekke (1980) lives and work in Bergen. She works with
spinning and art installations were textile is the main focus.

Hildur Bjarnadottir (1971) Lives in Island, pt. she is working in
Bergen as a fellow at the Norwegian Artistic Research program,
lasting 3 years. She works mainly with plant dying in textile
expressions and water colours.

Hilde Hauan Johnsen (1953) lives in Tromsø and commute to

optics and with sound installations in traditional textile techniques
like weaving and sprang.

Britta Marakatt Labba (1951) lives in Øvre Sopparo in the North of
Sweden she is a textile artist and use embroidery as her main
expression in her art works. She embroider the life and history of the
Sami people.

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1990
1990
by Lene Hansen                    motive to engage and very few
                                  with organizational experience
                                  gathered to discuss the fate of

New Year’s Eve 1990. Someone’s    Why this focus on the Sami,
knocking at my door in            someone asks, while others
Manndalen. A small village in a   willingly explain. Words like
                                  rebellion, awareness,
north in Norway.                  sustainable development, lack
Two young men smile brilliantly   of history, Norwegianization,
at me and say enthusiastical-     coastal Sami culture and identity
ly: “Do you want to save the      are swirling in the air.
world with us?”. “Of course,”     The mood rises: “We must rock
I replied, taken aback but also
curious about how it would go
away. “We are going to start a
Sami youth association here in
                                  several hours of questions and
                                  answers, visions, dreams and
Three hours later we meet at      ideas about what had been and
the inaugural meeting of what     what was to become. We should
will be Gáivuona Sáminuorat /     engage in politics, culture and
                                  the environment, under a Sami
people between 19 and 25 years    umbrella. We should take the
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coastal sami out of the             two axes. On the one hand it’s
doghouse. Convey its past; give
it a new content and thus a new     traditions and ideas of the
future. Shame would become          original culture. On the other
pride. Thus began, what for         side the population wants
many of us was, the adventure       modernization and
of the Riddu Riddu festival.        development. This is often a
Riddu Riddu, “storm on the
coast” in Norwegian, is an          are no forms of expression and
international indigenous            tradition that hold both cultural
festival held every summer in       orientations. Riddu Riddu has,
the small village Manndalen. The    however, been such a place.
festival has its origins in a       A place that encourages
norwegianised coastal Sami          openness and dialogue about
area, where a postcolonial          language, culture and identity.
awareness and                       A place where ambiguity and
self-understanding is prominent.    clarity can go hand in hand. A
The village is situated, in many    place where participants can get
contexts, far out in the            to know themselves and others,
periphery, a great distance from    with art as a tool.
both the Sami and Norwegian         Through 24 years, the festival
center. Sami culture and            has evolved from being a small
self-understanding has for years    local barbecue to become a
been a privat matter and well       global meeting place for
hidden. It was something that       indigenous peoples and
should not be visible, although     minorities worldwide. The road
language and customs still lived    there was steep and twisting,
locally among the oldest. The       but the years have shown that
festival’s development has come     dialogue is possible - as long as
about through openness to           someone will tell and someone
Sami, Norwegian and                 will listen. Such is also The Stich
international indigenous culture.   Project. Slowly we are sewing
This provoked many and had a        stitches together so that the
                                    picture is complete. Not perfect,
years.                              but a little richer, a little more
Sami culture has evolved along      complete and utter to live with.

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Plant dying workshop at Riddu Riddu
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The stitch project spent a day embroidering with the
Women association in Rantis, Palestine.

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Performance at The international theatre festival in Dale
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The Stitch Project with workshop in cooperation with Windows
from Gaza for contemporary art
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Performance during the exhibition at Al Mamal Lab, Jerusalem
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Public intervention by Omaya Salman at Sommer Melbu, festival for
art and philosophy.

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A little less lonely                  to talk and where to listen?
by Frans Jacobi
                                      Of course we can go online and
                                      meet there. Of course we can
Step step, step your heart up.        talk at Skype – or at Facebook,
Step step, stitch the holes up.       at Twitter or at Instagram. All
                                      these possibilities exist and for
I am sitting on a train, travelling   most of us there are accessible.
through a norwegian landscape.        What more do we need? Why is
The train is going in and out of      this not enough?
tunnels, in and out of the earth,
like a needle going in and out of     In an interview the italian
fabric. The landscape is a piece      thinker Franco ’Bifo’ Berardi
of fabric. The train is a needle      talks about two modes of
and my journey is spinning a          communication between oneself
long and fragile thread behind        and the other - the connective
me.                                   and the conjuctive:

We are all lost. Deplaced.            Conjunction is any kind of
Moving from here to there.            relation between linguistic
Limited by walls and borders.         beings – human beings as
                                      linguistic creators; relations
Lonely souls on each our long         that don’t have any kind of
and winding road in various and       predetermined, prestructured
                                      form, except the body sensitive,
                                      sensible format of language. A
Step step, step your heart up.        conjunctive
Step step, stitch the holes up.       relation is a relation between
                                      round bodies that don’t have a
How to connect? How to                point of perfect interaction.
re-establish meaningfull
dialogues? How to ground
ourselves? Or rather: Where?          Connection means the exchange
Where to meet? Where to look          of messages and the production
each other in the eyes? Where to      of meaning in a media or
hear each others voices? Where

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have pre-formatted machines.         dont understand. I have to hear
Segments of interaction.             your voice. Conjunctive com-
                                     munication is you and me. Here.
Connective communication is          Sharing space and time. Now.
pre-designed. It takes place in
pre-designed formats and only        I'm all lost in the supermarket, I
works if we accepts the              can no longer shop happily
conditions of these pre-designs.     I came in here for the special
In social media we are forging
                                     And it's not here, it disappear
pre-designs of corporate             I'm all lost in the supermarket, I
globalism. We are shaping our        can no longer shop happily
identities anew. We are
coming together, not as one, but     The Stitch Project is an attempt
as similar. We are shaping up, we    at a place to meet. It crosses
mainstreaming ourselves. We          borders and cultures. It is mak-
are part of a whole, but only as     ing us meet. Even though we are
similar.                             seperated - seperated by geogra-
                                     phy, seperated by politics, seper-
Step step, step your heart up.       ated by borders - we can meet.
Step step, stitch the holes up.      Our round imperfect bodies can
                                     meet and we can talk. We can
Conjunctive communication is         eat and we can work together.
not pre-designed. Its not
corporate. Conjunctive               Embroidery, weaving, spinning.
communication is grounded in         Extracts of plants becoming
our bodies. In the imperfection      color. Local plants, local col-
                                     ors. Food. Cooking. Local food.
singular bodies. It is grounded in   Exotic food. These are all simple
where we are. Physical. Its limit-   tools. Tools are meant to pro-
ed by where we are. Its between      duce. A result, a production, an
you and me, but we have to           item. But here the tools are used
meet to make it work. I have to
see your face. I have understand     to make us meet. By using the
your body language to make up        tools we are showing each other
for the parts of your language I     who we are. Where we come

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from. What we like.                 running from the north of
                                    Norway to the Middle East is a
And we talk. And we tell. Stories   metaphor for the long journey
from here. Stories from there. A    that the project has undertak-
lot of stories.                     en, for the long narrative that
                                    we have woven together. In the
These tools are traditional. They   fabric each of us has stitched our
stem from a time when things        small stories, our images and
were connected. The hand was        symbols and these fragments
connected to the body. Work         of narrative, looks like a large
was a bodily action. Work was       collective story. It is not a story,
connected to materials and          it doesn’t add up – but it doesn’t
materials sprung directly from      matter. What matters is that its
the surroundings. From the          a metaphor for the possibilty of
place we were living. Food was      such a story.
an expression of our dialogue
with the place we were living.      The thread doesn’t connect the
We were rooted. We were sta-        lost nation of the Sami with the
ble identities, working with our    lost nation of the Palestine. But
hands. Working with materials       it suggest that in spite of all
and things that expressed our       the borders and deplacements
belonging.                          we can meet. In physical, direct
                                    conversation. In conjunction.
Now we are moving. Moving           The thread makes this possible
around. Not belonging, but          on a metaphorical level, and the
longing. Longing for the past.
Longing for home. Longing for       Project People makes it possi-
each other. Longing for ours-       bel in the real world. If only for
leves.                              a short while we met and our
                                    meeting is recorded, memorized
Step step, step your heart up.      as stitch. The hole is stitched up.
Step step, stitch the holes up.     They leave again, and we are left.

The Stitch Project tools are also   And we are left: A little less
metaphors. Metaphors for our        lonely.
meeting. The long spun thread

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The stitch project visited Bedouin camp at the desert close to
Hebron. We shared knowledge about wool and spinning with the
women.
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The Stitch Project with workshop in cooperation with
     Windows from Gaza for contemporary art

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antis, Palestine.

 contemporary art

red knowledge about wool and spinning with the women.

 contemporary art

        The Stitch Project with workshop in cooperation with Windows
 hy     from Gaza for contemporary art

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Spinning workshop at Sommer Melbu

Artwork by Kiyoshi Yamamoto at
Sommer Melbu, festival for art
and philosophy

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The Stitch Project in Iceland        able Arts and Design (ASAD).
fall 2013: The Role of the           The fundamental aim for the
Arts in a Time of Change             exhibition, and the seminar
                                     that followed it, was to create
Ásthildur Jónsdóttir assistant       a platform for safeguard of the
professor at the Iceland Academy     cultural diversity in the North
of the Arts                          and to support the local social
                                     and environmental development
                                     of local communities through
                                     examining the potential means
In late fall 2013 the Stitch Proj-   of art and art education for
ect participated in the exhibition
                                     changing values.
‘Relate North’ in Iceland. This
                                     This exhibition is about the
was the second exhibit of the
                                     visitors and for them. It shows
University of the Arctic’s the-
                                     that the world is big and every-
matic network Arctic Sustain-
                                     one should have a place in it. As
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you walk through the exhibit         stated:
and read the artist statements,      The challenges arise from values
you see works that touch upon        that have created unsustainable
ecological, environmental and        societies... We need a shared
philosophical themes connected       commitment to education that
to sustainability. The works deal    empowers people for change.
with who we are, the world that      Such education should be of a
surrounds us and how we act.         quality that provides the values,
(Jónsdóttir, 2013b)                  knowledge, skills and compe-
The exhibition aimed to help         tencies for sustainable living and
guests to deepen their under-        participation in society.
standing of its topic. It raised     These challenges call for all of
the question of what we can do       us to rethink our value frame-
                                     work and incorporate new
complex ecology and well-being.      approaches to what we consider
In these critical times the move     a good life. The exhibition and
towards the goal of sustainabili-    the collaboration in the ASAD
ty requires fundamental changes      network is part of that process.
in human attitudes and activity.     We all need to strive to create
It can be seen as the struggle       change and work towards a
for a balance between the good       future focusing on well-being in
life and the integrity of nature,    balance with the earth’s carrying
resulting in human actions often     capacity.

and crossing the earth’s environ-    The stitch project and sustain-
mental limits as a result of an      ability
overemphasis on the good life        Artists, whichever media they
(Háskóli Íslands, 2012; Hattingh,    use, create works that are in
n.d.; Jónsdóttir, 2013a; Samp-       close harmony with their so-
ford, 2010). “Increasingly, people
believe that the integrity of the    the present (Barrett, 2011). It
earth itself is under threat – a
belief that is fuelled by disturb-   connection between artists and
ing images and reports from          the content of their work and
outer space” (Tuan, 2004,p. 15).     ask how one can gain knowledge
The Bonn declaration (2009)          about important issues relat-

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ed to sustainability by viewing                                    -
works of art. One could do it in     ries, knowledge and inspiration.
three ways:                          The fact that this cloth had
Promoting ecological use of          travelled all the way from Gaza,
materials.                           Tromsø, Jerusalem,
Maintaining and developing ex-       Bergen, Ramallah, Dale, Rantis,
isting technology and knowledge
of issues in visual arts.            yet another dimension. There
Working with content that in-        is rich potential for interesting
creases understanding of issues      dialogues among the partici-
relating to sustainable develop-     pants when they participate in
ment (Jónsdóttir 2011).              traditions, political- social- and
One can connect the Stitch           cultural issues that connect us
Project to all of those means. It    all as world citizens. This ap-
is possible to connect the project   proach is in line with the key
to all those factors.                issues of sustainability: we need
1. The group responsible for that    to learn to maintain the good
set up the project in Iceland set    life without diminishing the
up a workshop station where          quality of life for others, and
they made thread from Icelan-        depleting natural resources. We
dic wool. During the exhibition      must protect these resources for
opening the visitors could ob-       our own and future generations
serve how rock and cassettes are     (UN documents, n.d.).
used to create a thread. 2. The      Sustainability calls for integrat-
Nordic countries have an exten-      ed systemic thinking highlight-
sive textile tradition. The work     ing the understanding that in
has the potential to strengthen      sustainability we are all working
the knowledge of stitch work by      within a web of interdependent
sharing knowledge with others.       ecological and social systems
3. Since textile is a social meta-   (Sterling, 2004; McKenzie,
phor, the setting in the Nordic      2008). It can dissolve barriers
house with the tablecloth laid                                         -
out on an eight-meter long           ry and praxis, as well as between
table with chairs all around it,     all disciplines. Some of the
opens the door for dialogue. The     works exhibited at the Nordic
project is intended as a meeting     house had participation ele-

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ments, which may be associated        project. The participants became
with this important point.            very active in the round table
Participation has become more         discussion and mentioned how
                               -      working together opened up the
temporary art. This phenome-          dialogue.
non goes by many names such
as: participative art, collabora-     One of art teacher who visited
                                  -   the exhibition highlighted the
                                      importance of how the possibil-
process art. Some works of art
like the ‘Stitch project’ involve     of all ages join in. This teacher
the community. They tend to           hoped to develop a project in the
deal with social issues that are      Icelandic countryside inspired by
closely related to the values that    this idea.
form the basis of sustainability.     Everyone agreed to the need to
The Stitch Project is able to show
in one piece a very complex is-       learn from and understand each
sue. Community-based art is any       other. Examples of disrupted
art created with the purpose of       and vested interests were men-
engaging a particular communi-        tioned, and the importance of
ty into a larger dialogue with the    creating circumstances that al-
purpose of generating positive        lowed more space for the imag-
change.                               ination to foster more sustain-
                                      able ways of living.
One week after the exhibition         The Stitch Project and educa-
opened I organized a seminar          tional potentials
about sustainability in the           When teaching in a school one
Nordic house, for Icelandic art       could say that an art-class is a
teachers. Around sixty teachers       community of people. The same
participated. Seven practicing        can be said of people who hap-
art teachers gave presentations       pen to live together in the same
about their approach to educa-        neighbourhood, same city, same
tion for sustainability. After the
presentation the whole group          families who have their own ide-
came into the exhibition space        ologies, tastes and values even
and gathered around the stitch        though Iceland is fairly mono

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cultural. Participating with the     can play a fundamental role for
group in an exhibition like this     citizens in understanding their
                                     own local settings. The table-
my role to discover how those        cloth creates opportunities for
                                     political expression, community
productive                           dialogue and shared cultural
The Stitch Project provides          experiences. It has the capacity
possibilities for collaboration
when working alone or together.      empathy, create dialogue and
People had the opportunity to        foster new ideas and relation-
come together and take part in
creating the cloth. That helps       democratic way of expressing,
participants to develop their        sharing and shaping values.
social capital by cooperating,

shared ideas and values. But just
as importantly, the work is very
individual. You could come alone
to the exhibition space and work
on the cloth. Even though the
work is a part of a collaborative
process people could participate
in the work in solitude. That way
the work focuses on the impor-
tance of each person has. This
could work as a metaphor for
looking at the impact we have as
humans both on the ecosystem
and on a society’s culture. The
Stitch Project can be seen as a
metaphor for the importance of
human unity in modern exis-
tence.
It can be argued that a cultural
project like the Stitch Project is
not simply a luxury but that it

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References:

Barret, T. (2011). The importance of teaching interpretation, FATE in
Review, 32, 3-
11.
The Bonn declaration, world conference on education for sus-
tainable development, (2009). Bonn, Germany. From: http://
www.esd-world-conference2009.org/en/ whatsnew/news-detail/
item/%20bonn-declaration-adopted.html

Iceland.
Sustainability and environment policy]. Háskóli Íslands.
Hattingh, J. (n.d.). Faultlines in the concepts of sustainability and
sustainable development. From: http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/G02464.
pdf

in EfS]. Netla. From: http://netla.hi.is/arslok-2011
Jónsdóttir, Á. (2013a). Art and place-based education for the under-
standing of sustainability. In press, Education in the North.
Jónsdóttir, Á. (2013). Relate North, Exhibition catalogue. Iceland
Academy of the Arts and the ASAD network.
McKenzie, M. (2008) The places of pedagogy: or, what we can do
with culture through intersubjective experiences, Environmental
Education Research , 14, 3, 361-373.
Sampford, C. (2010). Re-conceiving the good life: the key to sustain-
able globalization. Australian Journal of Social Issues, 45(1), 13-24.
From: http://eprints.qut.edu.au/42574/
Tuan, Y. F. (2004). Place, art, and self. Chicago, IL: University of Vir-
ginia Press, Santa Fe, NM & Columbia College.
UNESCO. (nd). Education for sustainable development. From: http://
www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/leading-the-internation-
al-agenda/education-for-sustainable-development

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Performance at Relate North exhibition at Nordic House, Reykjavik

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"Palestine Heritage: Tool for            openness to, and tolerance of for-
Cultural Exchange"                                                            -
                                         estine, or the Holy Land, as many
By: Dr. Adel H. Yahya.                   call it, is in fact the birth place of
                                         tourism in the form of pilgrimage.
Director of the Palestinian As-
                                         During the fourth century AD peo-
                                         ple started coming to the country
(PACE)                                   as pilgrims to visit the Christian
                                         Holy places such as the birth place
                                         of Jesus (Bethlehem) and his burial
                                         site (Jerusalem), and to walk in the
                                         footsteps of the Holy Family. This
                                         role was further illustrated with

                                         of Moslem pilgrims to Jerusalem
                                         from the eighth century on. Pales-
                                         tine is also the cradle of civilisation,
                                         and the land where the three great
The Heritage of Palestine is for the
                                         monotheistic religions of mankind;
most part a world heritage even if
                                         Islam, Christianity and Judaism
most of its world renowned histor-
                                         blossomed. The Palestinians have
ical, religious and archaeological
                                         always had very high expectations
sites are not recognized as such,
                                         from this human activity (tour-
neglected and abandoned as a
                                         ism). Most of them view it as an
result of the current political situa-
                                         important human activity that
tion. The country has a long tradi-
                                                                              -
tion as a tourist destination, and
its people have a long tradition of
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to other cultures and various ways      have been denied the right to pres-
of life. The importance of cultural     ent themselves to the world and
exchange may be hard to quantify        to promote their own country and
but it broadens the perspectives        heritage. Their image of the coun-
of visitors and locals alike, and for   try and its indigenous people has,
most Palestinians it betters lives.     in fact, been stained by decades of
Interrupting tourism for one reason
or another can have a devastating       especially since the establishment
impact on many in the country and       of the state of Israel in 1948, and
the country as a whole.                 more particularly since the occupa-
Palestine is a narrow bridge of land    tion of the West Bank and Gaza in
between two massive continents;         1967. Due to the decline of the tour-
Africa and Asia. This location has      ism sector world famous historical,
dominated the country's history         religious and environmental tourist
from time immemorial. People            attractions in the Palestinian areas
from east and west, south and           lack the sort of facilities one would
north have moved back and forth
across the country. This small          and the world. World renown sites
piece of land has been involved in      which would normally qualify as
almost every important event in         world heritage sites lack the neces-
the region's history, and the world     sary regulations and laws to pro-
                                        tect and to promote them locally
many civilisations and cultures,        and internationally. Aside from
from Pharonic Egypt down to the         the cities of Jerusalem, Bethlehem,
Moslem and Christian Arabs and          and to a lesser extent, the city of
the Israeli Jews of today. The Baby-    Jericho, all other Palestinian cities
lonians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks,   and localities in the West Bank and
and Romans have all had an impact       the Gaza Strip are rarely visited by
                                        foreign tourists. Tourists refrain
today’s Palestine. Ruins of Canaan-     from visiting the Palestinian areas
ite and Roman temples, Byzantine        due to concerns about safety, but
monasteries and churches, and           also as a result of ignorance of the
Moslem mosques and minarets             potentials of the country.
stand witness to this rich heritage.    Most, if not all Palestinians are
Regrettably, Palestine’s turbulent      eager, however, to promote the
recent past has had a detrimental,      image of their country as a signif-
if not fatal impact on the country’s    icant tourist destination. Despite
                                   -
ishing tourist industry. Palestinians   succeeded in doing so after the

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establishment of the Palestinian        determined from the type of dress
Authority in 1996, but this was only    "thoub" she wares. That depends
a short lived episode which came to     usually on the type of cloth, colors
an abrupt end upon the breakout of      of cloth and threads, the way the
al-Aqsa Intifada in Oct. 2000.
Palestinian Embroidery: One form        or lack thereof .. etc.
of Palestinian Culture For hun-         Although we have no clear evidence
dreds, if not thousands of years,       from ancient Palestine, patterns
the people of Palestinians have had     of traditional Palestinian women
a long standing tradition in pro-       dresses bear strong resemblance
ducing a wide range of handicrafts.
Many of those continued into the        shown in ancient Egyptian and
present day as a result of tourism                                        -
and international interest in the                                        -
country. Palestinian handicrafts
                                        that "Palestinian clothing from
                                        the 19th. - 20th. centuries shows
                                        traces of similar styles of clothing
and above all embroidery which          represented in eastern art 3,000
is a wide spread Palestinian wom-       years ago". Others like Ms. Hanan
en artistic tradition. Palestinian      Munayyer, collector and researcher
embroidery is very beautiful and of     of Palestinian clothing sees resem-
very high quality. Diverse motifs are   blance between modern Palestinian
to be found in Palestinian embroi-      costumes and that of the Canaan-
dery and costume due to Palestine's     ites (1500 BC). Traditional motifs
long history and position on the        derived mainly from basic geomet-
international trade routes which
                                        triangles as well as local plants,
The tradition of embroidering in
locally-distinctive styles was at its   usually gets the largest and most
height during the Ottoman rule of       beautiful blocks of embroidery,
Palestine. Foreign travelers to Pal-    probably to direct the attention to
estine in the 19th. and early 20th.     the important chest area.
centuries often referred to the rich    Longstanding traditions of embroi-
variety of costumes among Pales-        dery are to be found today in the
tinian women.                           mountainous region of Palestine,
Until recently, a woman's econom-       especially the Jerusalem, Ramallah,
ic status, her marital status, and      and Bethlehem areas, as well as up-
the area she comes from could be        per and lower Galilee, and the Ne-

 56

gev. There is little embroidery in the   hangings began to appear in the
costal area from Haifa in the north
                                     -   camps of the West Bank. Individual
                                         village styles were lost and replaced
This is probably due to the fact that    by a distinct Palestinian style.
embroidery is coupled with the lack      Women would normally begin em-
work shortages and unemploy-             broidering as young girls at the age
ment, especially amongst women.          of seven. The skill is usually passed
The areas described above with no        to them from their mothers and
tradition in embroidery are usually      grandmothers. Before the 20th.
highly productive agricultural areas,    century, most young girls didn't
and thus relatively richer than the      attend school, and thus spent much
mountain region in the centre, and       of their time preparing their clothes
the desert in the south.                 and especially their costumes for
                                         ceremonial purposes, particularly
were introduced to Palestinian em-       their wedding dresses. Items pro-
broidery by European pattern books       duced included besides the embroi-
                                         dered dresses, veils, headdresses,
promoted the appearance of curvi-        undergarments, kerchiefs, belts and
                                         even footwear.
leaf arrangements, and introduced
the paired bird motif which became
very popular in central Palestinian
regions. The purpose of embroi-
dery has changed greatly in recent
decades. Political unrest in the
region has pushed many women
into the position of providers for
their families. Some women are
widowed, while others have hus-

because of the separation wall and
the many restrictions on movement
in the area. Many women who
are skilled embroiderers began to
work to embroider for the market
despite the many chalenges. New
embroidery styles such as scarves
(shawls), women purses, and wall

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Collecting Xanthoria parietina at the sea side in Melbu for plant dying
                                                                          59

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Our greatest
glory is
not in never
falling,
but in rising
every time
we fall.

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