Embroidered memories: postmemorial nostalgia in Palestinian tatreez

For the descendants of al-Nakba survivors, who have been separated and exiled from their familial homeland in Palestine, memories of life before exile are no longer part of an act of recall, but one inherited and imagined. As seen in the narratives that follow, the memories they inherit from family members are often inflected by nostalgia and a longing for return, which in turn shape their imagined relationship with Palestine and their Palestinian identities. To narrate this ambivalence, young artists practise the traditional craft of Palestinian embroidery, or tatreez . As a result, what originated as a form of communication, passed matrilineally, has evolved to incorporate a new spectrum of voices. This article examines discourses of Palestinian postmemory in the embroidered motifs of diasporic artists. This research examines how family dynamics and exposure to tatreez are shaped by gender and each family’s postmemory, drawing on online biographies, written autobiographies and social media posts by the artists, it explores what aspects of their families’ histories are remembered by young Palestinians and how these memories are reinterpreted and expressed through contemporary embroidered art. These individuals create art that combines nostalgia, longing, obligation, confusion, pride and commemoration that characterises al-Nakba memory and modern Palestinian identity. Each artist represents the perspectives of the descendants of survivors; they claim their stake in history and do so in ways that push the craft, as well as the identities it represents, in an evolutionary direction.