Maraya Art Centre has opened SILA. All That Is Left to You, an exhibition that turns to Palestinian embroidery, or tatreez, as both cultural inheritance and artistic language. The opening of the exhibition was marked by the presence of HE Ahmed Al Qaseer of Shurooq, alongside representatives from the Palestinian Embassy, Dubai Culture & Arts Authority, and HE Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi of Barjeel Art Foundation.
The project is co-curated by Cima Azzam, Noor Suhail, and Rula Alami, who initiated the SILA series. Together, they present twenty-five artists and designers whose works move between preservation and transformation. The title sila صلة – meaning “connection” in Arabic – frames the exhibition’s central gesture: stitching together memory, identity, and creative reinvention across generations.
Paintings, textiles, sculptures, and installations reveal tatreez as a practice that resists confinement to tradition while remaining deeply bound to it. Some works were realised in collaboration with embroiderers from the Inaash Association in Lebanon, emphasising the importance of transmission and the labour of women who have long sustained this craft.
The exhibition includes artists such as Amer Shomali, Abdel Rahman Katanani, Aya Haidar, Hazem Harb, Samia Halaby, Nada Debs, and Steve Sabella, among others, highlighting diverse approaches to a shared cultural vocabulary.
Rather than treating tatreez as static heritage, SILA proposes it as a living archive: a thread linking intimate stories to collective histories, continuity to rupture. Within Maraya Art Centre, embroidery becomes a field where resilience, creativity, and the possibility of renewal converge.
Location: Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah, UAE.
Dates: 21 September 2025 until 5 January 2026.