Weaving the Narrative Thread- A Review of Thread Memory: Embroidery from Palestine at V&A Dundee
By Fiona McAllister
Image courtesy of the Palestinian Museum Digital Archive.
Curated by Rachel Dedman, Jameel Curator of Contemporary Art from the Middle East, this immersive journey through Palestinian embroidery is housed on the second floor of V&A Dundee, a looming post-modern building overlooking the Firth of Tay. In collaboration between the collections of the V&A and the Palestinian Museum, based in Birzeit in the West Bank, this exhibition celebrates forty-five years of Dundee’s twin city connection with Nablus, Palestine.
On UNESCO’s Representative list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, [1] Tareez, the Arabic word for hand-embroidery found on Palestinian thobes (dresses). A language as much as a craft, Tareez varies greatly by location, with villages across Palestine each hosting a unique style of stitch and dress. While this is not a language I was familiar with before seeing this exhibition, visitors witness a testament to life, love, and vitality that endures through tareez. Ultimately, this exhibition picks up the threads of this rich language, cogniscent of the cultural erasure, ethnic cleansing, and genocide in Gaza and ongoing oppression across Palestine. By establishing embroidery as an act of radical resistance, Thread Memory interweaves past and present together in a joyous yet bittersweet mirage of colour and craft.
With collections spanning the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, visitors are first introduced to embroidery from before and during the British Mandate of Palestine (1917-1948). This period was marked by an influx of tourists eager to visit the Holy Land. One linen veil (1900-1945) from Ramallah has both Jerusalem and Ramallah embroidered in English years after its making, likely to increase its appeal as a souvenir. The exhibition informs that many of these thobes were also lined with textiles imported by Britain. Yet, Palestinian women's visionary craft perseveres through colonial influence.
Dress from Beit Nabala, c. 1920-1930, embroidery on cotton, silk, The Palestinian Museum Collection. Image courtesy of Fiona McAllister.
Weaving through the exhibition and the mass of brilliant thobes, I came across a faded cotton dress from Beit Nabala, circa 1920-1930. It was well-worn, its sleeves darned and repaired several times, and the chest panel deconstructed and then mended for the wearer to breastfeed her babies. According to the plaque, this dress would have been worn by at least two different women, emblematic of how these thobes were passed down from mother to daughter. The exhibition states that Beit Nabala was one of the 530 villages destroyed during the Nakba of 1948. Nakba, meaning ‘catastrophe’ in Arabic, refers to the ethnic cleansing and mass displacement at the hands of Israeli settlers during the Arab-Israel war. [2] It hurts to think of the daughters and granddaughters being denied the chance to weave this narrative thread. Instead, an object of everyday use remains frozen in time, never to be weathered by the sun shining over a place that only exists in memory and thread.
Leena Nammari, Absence does not mean forgetting, 2022, porcelain paper, clay tablets, and map pins. Image courtesy of Grant Anderson for V&A Dundee; copyright – Grant Anderson / www.grantanderson.me / @grantandersondotme
Adjacent is Leena Nammari’s Absence does not mean forgetting (2022), an installation of 626 porcelain clay tablets, each representing a destroyed Palestinian village, town, or habitation during the Nakba and the seventy-five years following. On each tablet is a Cyprus tree, emblematic of the memories of these lost villages dispersed through generations of displaced Palestinians. Like the deep roots of the Cyprus tree, Namarri demonstrates how Palestinians have preserved their memories of home throughout the diaspora.
Thread Memory contains many other additions from Palestinians in the diaspora, such as the thobe worn by Nadia El-Nakla at her husband, Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf’s inauguration in 2023. Curator Rachel Dedman explains the significance of this piece: ‘I remember seeing that moment and thinking how powerful it was: how a single dress can represent so much, and how the act of wearing it can resonate globally.’ [3] By including Nadia El-Nakla’s dress in the exhibition, Dedman demonstrates how she has curated a living collection, ever unfolding.
Nadia El-Nakla at Thread Memory. Image courtesy of Jane Barlow, PA Wire.
Across from Nammari’s installation is a myriad of thobes from across Palestine, blurring together in a vivid rainbow of artistry and heritage. Look out for a thobe from the British Mandate era Beit Dajan, bearing an orange blossom motif. Beit Dajan was a centre for orange growing, and this playful design, known as an ‘airy-fairy’ motif, represents the area's vibrant agricultural background. Both an ongoing symbol of national identity and a brutal reminder of what has been lost, this ‘airy-fairy’ orange motif weaves a memory of sweetness and sanguinity. Through the design of this thobe, the cheerful fruits can remain ripe in both thread and memory.
Dress from Gaza, 2000-2010, embroidery on polyester, Rafah Museum Collection. Image courtesy of Grant Anderson for V&A Dundee; copyright – Grant Anderson / www.grantanderson.me / @grantandersondotme
As you wander further back into the exhibition, you will enter the final room of Thread Memory. In this room, the thobes from Gaza are on display in addition to installations from modern Palestinian artists. In my opinion, one of the most visceral and heartbreaking additions to this exhibition is a small dress from Gaza. The exhibition states that this thobe was damaged in the bombing of the Rafah Museum in Gaza in 2023, which was a purposeful target of Israeli bombardments. The majority of the museum’s items were destroyed. Rescued after eight months on the roof of a neighboring building, this dress is both a symbol of immense suffering and unimaginable endurance. To Dedman, this dress “embodies the indestructibility of Palestine … this sense that despite all these horrors, Palestine will exist, will persist.” [4]
Ideally, this exhibition would not exist. Ideally, the faded thobe from Beit Nabala would have been in the hands of a daughter or granddaughter of its most recent owner and remained in everyday use. Ideally, the small girl’s dress could have remained safe in the Rafah Museum. But instead, Thread Memory exists to house this vital collection of what is threatened with erasure. Curator Rachel Dedman has deftly conveyed the urgency of preserving the craft of tareez while celebrating the ongoing accomplishments of Palestinian artists and activists. She has curated a highly emotive and informative archive of memory, woven through thread.
On display until Spring 2026, entry to Thread Memory: Embroidery from Palestine, as well as the rest of V&A Dundee, is completely free and definitely deserves a visit.
Bibliography:
[1] UNESCO. "From the Palestinian Bearers of Heritage to the UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity." December 17, 2021. https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/palestinian-bearers-heritage-unescos-representative-list-intangible-cultural-heritage-humanity
[2] United Nations. “The Question of Palestine- About the Nakba.” Accessed October 16, 2025. https://www.un.org/unispal/about-the-nakba/
[3] Dedman, Rachel. “ ‘In memory there is defiance’: inside the V&A exhibition exploring Palestinian textile and embroidery as an act of resistance.” Interview by Sofia Hallström. Wallpaper*, July 17, 2025. https://www.wallpaper.com/fashion-beauty/thread-memory-embroidery-from-palestine-v-and-a-dundee-review
[4] Ellie Violet Bramley. “‘A symbol of Palestinian presence and identity’: the personal and political world of ‘tatreez’ – in pictures,” The Guardian, August 18, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/gallery/2025/aug/18/a-symbol-of-palestinian-presence-and-identity-the-personal-and-political-world-of-tatreez-in-pictures