NEWS
Baltimore (August 29, 2025)
Making Space Bmore and The Tatreez Institute Present Tatreez Inheritance
Photo of Wafa: River Delieto
Making Space Bmore is proud to present Tatreez Inheritance, an exhibition organized in partnership with the Tatreez Institute, founded by dress historian, curator, and embroiderer Wafa Ghnaim.
BALTIMORE (August 29, 2025) — Making Space Bmore is proud to present Tatreez Inheritance, an exhibition organized in partnership with the Tatreez Institute, founded by dress historian, curator, and embroiderer Wafa Ghnaim. Featuring photographic reproductions and writings on six traditional Palestinian dresses, the exhibition explores the historical, social, and political significance of dress styles produced in the mid-twentieth century.
Since Wafa’s debut of Tatreez Inheritance (2023), the second iteration has evolved into an exploration of the enduring presence and essence of Palestinian embroidery in the United States through the use of technology. In the face of ongoing genocide, violence, and cultural erasure, this exhibition presents photographic reproductions of dresses as a possible approach to heritage preservation and presentation, ensuring broader access to future generations. Tatreez Inheritance affirms the role of material culture and art history as vital forces in sustaining Palestinian identity across generations and borders, while also employing methods that safeguard fragile garments from the risks of travel, exhibition, and handling. Several dresses included in the exhibition survive only in tatters, underscoring both their vulnerability and their lasting significance.
Over the past seventy-seven years, the displacement, dispossession, and dispersion of the Palestinian people have carried precious embroidered dresses and textiles across Europe and North America. Once rooted in specific geographies of making, these garments now circulate within the diaspora, separated from the land that gave them meaning. Through the stewardship of the Tatreez Institute, they are given a framework for potential return, whether through rematriation or the reestablishment of cultural ties. Tatreez Inheritance continues this inquiry by examining how historic heirlooms might be exhibited and interpreted in diasporic contexts. Palestinian embroidery and dress constitute a profound cultural inheritance, demanding preservation, study, and ethical display.
Visitors will be able to meet Wafa and have the rare opportunity to view the physical dresses—many of which have never been exhibited due to their fragile state—on display during a public program on Saturday, September 6, 5-8pm. The dresses in the exhibition will also be presented through a virtual lecture September 25, 12-2pm. Registration details to follow.
Program Details
Tatreez Inheritance
On view: August 30 - September 30, 2025
Gallery hours: Saturdays 12-5pm, or by appointment
Making Space Bmore
709 N Howard St. 21201
Saturday, September 6, 5-8pm - A Story in Stitches: Artist Talk by Hannah Atallah and Lecture by Wafa Ghnaim RSVP Here
Thursday, September 11, 5-9pm - On view during Bromo Art Walk
Thursday, September 25, 12-2pm - Virtual Lecture by Wafa Ghnaim
Wafa Ghnaim
Wafa Ghnaim is an art and dress historian, fashion researcher, embroiderer, educator, and the founder of the Tatreez Institute, specializing in Palestinian embroidery and adornment. She is the author of Tatreez & Tea (2016) and THOBNA (2023), with research published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the National Gallery of Singapore. A former instructor at the Smithsonian and Research Scholar at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she now continues her preservation work as a Research Fellow supported by the Mellon Foundation at the Museum of the Palestinian People, and a commissioned designer for Victoria & Albert Museum’s Thread Memory: Embroidery from Palestine.
The Tatreez Institute
The Tatreez Institute, also known as Tatreez & Tea, was founded by Wafa Ghnaim in 2016 to preserve, research, and document Palestinian embroidery, dress, and history in the United States. Dedicated to safeguarding intangible cultural heritage and preventing cultural erasure, the Institute stewards a growing collection of traditional dresses and headdresses from Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan rematriated from dumpsters, estates, and households across the world. This study collection facilitates the research that is published by the Institute, and is stewarded through Palestinian hands. Through research, education, and restoration practices, the Institute ensures that the art of embroidery in Palestine, inclusive of the practices, skills, knowledge and rituals as inscribed by UNESCO in 2021, continues to be studied, practiced, and transmitted across generations living in exile.
Making Space Bmore
Making Space Bmore is a non-profit gallery, print studio, and community hub in the heart of Baltimore. Our mission is to foster an environment where artists and organizations collaborate to challenge oppression, amplify marginalized voices, and use art as a catalyst for personal and social change. We strive to inspire and involve everyone in the collective effort towards community transformation.
Press contact:
Michelle Chen