Casa Árabe and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) are presenting “Threads of the Diaspora,” a collective work which has resulted from Palestinian embroidery workshops and gatherings that began at Casa Árabe’s headquarters in Madrid in September 2024.

The work was recently completed with the addition of “Dreams of a Palestinian Garden,” a series of pieces designed by Spanish-Palestinian teacher and artist Maysun Cheikh Ali Mediavilla, having been embroidered by people who took part in the latest workshops and meetings held from January to June 2025.

Throughout the Palestinian embroidery workshops and meetings, held from Fall 2024 to Spring 2025, these spaces for interaction between women (or mostly women), shared with similar customs and artistic practices in other regions of the Arab world and the Mediterranean, have been replicated in some form. 

Through the cooperation and joint work of many different participants, this collective work has been given form, consisting of three main features:

(2) The more than 220 pieces sent by participants from different parts of Spain and around the world, from December 2024 through February 2025, following instructions that were shared on website and social media. These pieces were then attached to the Gaza dress panel as “Threads of the Diaspora.”

3) The ”Dreams of a Palestinian Garden” (without rubble). Garden embroideries designed by Maysun Cheikh Ali Mediavilla and made by participants in workshops from January to March 2025, were completed at subsequent meet-ups from May through June. 

The end result, ”Threads of the Diaspora,” is so much more than just a garment or work of art: it is a joint exercise in resilient creativity to keep alive and increase awareness about a part of Palestinian cultural heritage that is seriously threatened today.

Among the many people that have made this collective creation possible, we would like to give special thanks to: Maysun Cheikh Ali Mediavilla, the Spanish-Palestinian teacher and artist who designed the work as well as teaching and facilitating the workshops; to Rosa Fernández Bravo, Julia Font Moreno and Dolores Jiménez Manso, who contributed at different stages of the production; the “Andreu Crespí i Plaza” Official Language School (EOI) in Palma, and the “Son Canals” Adult Education Center (CEPA) (Carme Rosselló Pons and Myriam Fraile), who organized a Palestinian embroidery workshop called “Weaving Links”, which connected with workshops in Madrid and then sent some of the pieces that completed the work; to the circle of embroiderers in Naples known as TATREEZ Napoli, from the Sgarrupato Social Center, which also held workshops there with a refugee embroiderer from Jenin and sent in pieces; in Cordoba, to the Mateo Inurria Art School and its students, and to the space called ”Recoveco,” the workshop of Almudena Castillejo, with the cooperation of Begoña Castillejo and Almudena Castillejo, who also hosted workshops there; to the various groups of embroiderers who have participated in the workshops, including the group of Moorish stitch embroiderers from the project “Hilar Largo” by Patricia Esquivias; groups of embroiders who came from different associations (CEAR, Red Cross, AECID, Colectivo Fibra, @pontoraices, Entretejidos…etc.); to the UNRWA and its Tatreez Project, with PeSeta, and to the embroiderers of the Sulafa cooperative in Gaza, for their inspiration; and to all those who took part in the workshops and donated their pieces in order to make this possible, as well as to all those who selflessly sent us their embroidery from home or wherever they happened to be. 

The “Threads of the Diaspora” were completed with more than 220 embroidery pieces received from different parts of Spain and around the world (Alicante, Arbizu, Bilbao, Madrid, Palma, Torrejón de Ardoz, Tres Cantos, Valencia, Naples, Diemen, etc.). In fact, the work had to be resized so as to make room for all or almost all of the embroideries received. 

The work was created as part of the project Threads of the Diaspora. Weaving Pieces of Palestinian Heritage, by Maysun Cheikh Ali Mediavilla, and promoted by Casa Árabe, with the support of the Spanish International Development Cooperation Agency (AECID).