Threading Memory: Tatreez Transformations
Threading Memory: Tatreez Transformations, invites audiences to explore the rich history and contemporary life of tatreez, the traditional Levantine art of embroidery. Through textiles, photography, sound, and portraiture, the exhibition highlights how this centuries-old practice continues to evolve across changing social and geographic contexts.
Co-curated with the artists of Alsama Studio, a grassroots social enterprise based in Beirut’s Shatila refugee camp, the exhibition showcases a collection of embroidered works curated bynartisans who sustain and reinterpret tatreez today. Their textiles demonstrate how cultural traditions travel, adapt, and remain dynamic, preserving collective knowledge while opening new possibilities for creative expression and livelihoods.
Visitors will encounter a curated selection of embroidery pieces alongside photography, and sound art developed by the Studio. Together, these works illuminate both the artistic processes behind tatreez and the deeply personal relationships the artists sustain with their craft.
More than a celebration of textile art, the exhibition explores tatreez as a living cultural practice, one that connects memory, materiality, and community. It invites audiences to reflect on how artistic traditions act as threads linking past and present while continuing to reimagine contemporary creative traditions of tatreez.
The exhibition forms part of the wider SAMA (Studies in Arts, Migration, and Aurality) Network programme, which brings together academic research, creative practice, and community collaboration.
Guided Tours
Saturday, 21 March
A multimedia exhibition and guided walk-through introduces the history and cultural significance of tatreez, the traditional Levantine practice of embroidery, and its contemporary reimagining in contexts of forced migration.
This event is part of the Cambridge Festival
Image copyright: Copyright: Alsama Studio Archive. Poster design by Benedict Turner-Berry