Moorish stitch embroidery has been created in Caleruela, Toledo since the turn of the twentieth century, having apparently been introduced by Zenobia Camprubí. It is a counted-thread style of embroidery that comes from Fez, Morocco, where it is known as tarz el ghorza. It is a type of backstitch, or turn stitch, that has no right or wrong side (it is reversible and can be seen from both sides), so its practice requires a lot of thread and proper technique. It thus shares stories interwoven between different parts of the Mediterranean, where techniques and traditions have traveled and meet up across time.

During this three-session embroidery workshop, our goal will be to learn the technique of Moorish stitchery in a gradual manner, by completing a sample patterns following the method used by Fatima Alaoui. In addition to this, the workshop will be a meeting point for people who want to learn more about the history of this style of embroidery.

The workshop will be held in three sessions lasting three hours each, on several Fridays from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Once the three sessions have come to an end, anyone who is interested can continue to learn more about the technique through an exercise in which we can observe and translate the decorative pattern on the neo-Mudejar façade of Casa Árabe’s headquarters in Madrid, just as the embroiderers from the Casa Encendida Moorish knitting group did as part of the project Hilar largo (“Stiching Long”), also put on by Patricia Esquivias.

This workshop is being offered as part of the project “Threads of the Diaspora: Weaving scraps of Palestinian heritage,” which has been given the support of the Spanish International Development Cooperation Agency (AECID).

Intended audience members
Adults or children over the age of 10 (with permission from their legal guardians) who are interested in learning about the history and technique used in this type of embroidery, as it made its way from Morocco to Spain.

Dates of the three workshop sessions
Friday, May 23, from 5:30 - 8:30 p.m. – Moorish Stitching 1
Friday, May 30, from 5:30 - 8:30 p.m.– Moorish Stitching 2
Friday, June 6, from 5:30 - 8:30 p.m.– Moorish Stitching 3

WORKSHOP INSTRUCTORS
 
Elena Núñez
Born in Caleruela, Núñez studied architecture and works in Madrid. She has been embroidering for 35 years.

Assia Sakhraouia Serroukh
Born in Larache, She has been living in Spain for 16 years, where she learned to create Fez-style embroidery through video tutorials.

Patricia Esquivias
Patricia Patricia Esquivias is a narrator and storyteller who explores in her works how social relations are shaped by symbolic and narrative mechanisms that involve acts of exclusion and destruction. In her videos, drawings, photographs, sculptures and installations, she deconstructs these hegemonic narratives and serves up alternative ways to reconstruct them and rediscover lost histories. Esquivias articulates narratives to question and fictionalize the past, as a method for re-examining paths in which some interpretations have been displacing others. Among her works related to Moorish embroidery, one must highlight the project “Hilar Largo” (“Stitching Long”) and her research on the embroidery of Moorish stitching and the women who keep it alive, produced with the support of a program by the”la Caixa” Foundation: Support for the creation ‘22 - Production. She has held solo exhibitions at Stacion (Pristina, Kosovo), CA2M (Móstoles) Marco (Vigo), Kunsthalle Winterthur (Switzerland); the Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), the Museo Nacional Reina Sofía (Madrid) and White Columns (New York).