Online Lecture: A Middle East Embroidery Conversation with Fatima Abbadi

'So much can be said from a small piece of embroidered cloth. With every stich it can reveal many women’s hidden stories made of struggle and resilience personal life experiences, political statements or even more historical events. Since generations this practice has been passed down from mother to daughter, carrying along all these stories, but since last decades this practice has been either vanished in certain regions of the world or replaced by industrial machine embroidery. Thus due to all these factors I find it very important to keep alive this extraordinary handcraft by teaching and talk about it. Preserving it means keeping alive traditional culture and heritage, reinforcing women’s connection with the land of origin and at the same time it represents an act of community building and women aggregation and empowerment.' Fatima Abbadi is photographer, embroiderer and collector of Jordanian and Palestinian traditional dress who grew up between the UAE (in Abu Dhabi), Jordan and Italy. She is a member of the Italian Mignon Group that promote street photography and the use of analogue cameras in black and white film. Themes of women and intercultural dialogue are a guiding thread in her other projects, such as the embroidery workshops she has set up for refugee women in the Netherlands, or her study of female embroidery traditions of a Christian community in northern Iraq. Order the recording here! Date: Thursday June 24 Location: Online via Zoom Costs: €5,- Language: English De Borduurschool This lecture is part of De Borduurschool: a collaboration with the Fries Museum on the occasion of the Haute Bordure exhibition.