Born in the United States, Amnna Attia is a Toronto-based artist studying with the Contemporary Arts Department at Etobicoke School of the Arts. Attia explores her Arab-Palestinian heritage through digital art and embroidery. Her interest in her personal heritage sparked a passion for learning about other cultures, exploring their customs, and what makes them unique including styles of artistic expression. Attia was a curator with the Albright Knox Museum’s The Presence of Absence exhibition opened in April 2021, and is now a curator with The Fearless Artist organization. Her work has been exhibited in group shows at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto, Etobicoke School of the Arts in Etobicoke, Canada, the Albright Knox Museum, in Buffalo, New York, the Art Gallery of Mississauga, the Neilson Park Creative Centre in Toronto, the Annual Spring Juried Art Show with Arts Etobicoke, the Virtual Art Gallery of Experiences Canada, as well as featured on the Zenerations Instagram of the Hyderabad branch in India and will soon be exhibited in the End Of Year Show with Us Gallery Contemporary in Toronto. Her work has also been published in Ultraviolet Magazine in Kingston, Canada, the Growth Virtual Zine in Toronto, Canada, the Arts Etobicoke Impact Report in Etobicoke, Canada, the Toronto Six Hundred Magazine in Toronto, Canada, the Original Magazine in London, United Kingdom, and will soon be published in the Toronto Public Library in Toronto, Canada.
I explore my Palestinian heritage in textile works using digitally manipulated traditional motifs executed through hand-stitched embroidery, making physical my sense of dislocation. I deliberately incorporate dysfunctional and excess threads within regionally specific motifs in order to document what they once were and now are: functional threads that fill the empty spaces within both the cloth and my heritage.
Originating about 3,000 years ago, “Tatreez” is The Arabic word for a style of Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery. As a Palestinian-Canadian, part of the Palestinian diaspora, I felt disconnected from my Palestinian identity. I found tatreez through my journey of reconnection and it is an amazing way to preserve and connect with my Palestinian identity and hopefully pass it on to future generations as well so I never forget about where we come from. Our history, our stories, our people’s resistance, and our mothers and grandmothers are embedded in each and every stitch.
This piece explores the deep memories within my family’s past and their experience with Palestine. Since my parents forcibly departed Palestine at a young age, they are unable to remember specific aspects of the land. By using traditional Palestinian embroidery as an influence for this piece, I gathered what’s left of their memories, as well as raw reference photos from my aunt (who lives in Palestine) and, tried to illustrate it physically to achieve a better understanding of Palestine from an authentic perspective.
This piece is about the person I was before the quarantine, a Palestinian who wasn’t entirely connected to their cultural identity. I was always afraid of expressing my identity and I didn’t understand it then, but as I grew older, I started to realize my family’s efforts to protect me. Eventually, we became stronger, grew out of the fear and my family started becoming more public with their Palestinian identity. So when I wanted to do the same, I looked into tatreez (Palestinian embroidery) and attended a beginner class for one day. When I learned about the history behind tatreez and started embroidering, I felt a deep connection, a connection I couldn’t have achieved unless I tried it myself.
The connection made me eager to learn more, see the connection between certain Palestinian pieces in houses (such as the hidden motifs in my traditional tatreez dresses, patterns between my cultures, etc), and teach other people about my culture and Palestine itself. This piece is important because It’s about remaking the original piece (“Heritage”) that started my journey by getting closer to my heritage. With this piece, I’ve built a relationship with the Palestinian community, strengthed my knowledge of who I am as a Palestinian, and what my ancestors did in an effort to protect our heritage. My tatreez is so important to me because it’s the journey to making the pieces that made me truly proud to be a Palestinian in this generation.