Vision - Janna Jasser

ERADICATION

An occupation seeks not only to seize territory, but to dismantle the very cultural and intellectual fabric that defines a people. When I began my research for this project, my goal was to document the history and techniques of tatreez, a traditional Palestinian embroidery that encodes collective memory, geography, and identity. Yet I quickly encountered the scarcity of archives, photographs, and primary sources, an absence that is itself the result of systematic erasure. Colonialism in the Middle East did not end with the withdrawal of armies; it persisted through the colonization of the mind. Cultural displacement, the suppression of indigenous aesthetics, and the redefinition of artistic value through Western frameworks have deeply affected how art is perceived, produced, and preserved.

NEOCOLONIALISM

Generations raised under post-colonial and neocolonial influence were taught to view their traditions as static, folkloric, or inferior rather than as living, evolving expressions of identity and resistance. The loss or distortion of practices such as tatreez is not merely a regional concern; it represents the erosion of global heritage. To reclaim these traditions is therefore not only an artistic act, but an act of decolonization, one that challenges imposed narratives and restores agency to cultural memory.

INSPIRATIION

Tirazain became an essential part of my process. It offered what so many official archives could not, a space built by the community, for the community. As a free, collaborative digital archive, it gathers fragments of memory scattered across generations and geographies. Through it, I discovered photographs, personal stories, and embroidery patterns that carried the voices of women who stitched history into fabric. The platform allowed me to see tatreez not as a static tradition, but as a living, evolving language of identity. What struck me most was the collective act of preservation; people coming together to rebuild what colonization attempted to erase. In many ways, Tirazain is more than an archive; it is an act of cultural resistance and continuity, reminding me that art, like memory, survives through connection.