Studios

Wafa Ghnaim

https://www.tatreezandtea.com/wafa

Wafa Ghnaim is a Palestinian researcher, author and educator who began learning embroidery from her mother, award-winning artist Feryal Abbasi-Ghnaim, when she was two years old. Her first book, “Tatreez & Tea: Embroidery and Storytelling in the Palestinian Diaspora” (2018), documents the traditional patterns and stories passed on to her by her mother. Wafa has since become a leading educator in SWANA dress history and embroidery techniques, as the first-ever Palestinian embroidery instructor at the Smithsonian Museum, Curator for the Museum of the Palestinian People in Washington, D.C., and most recently, Senior Research Fellow for The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Wafa continues her mother’s educational legacy through The Tatreez Institute (Tatreez & Tea), a global arts education initiative she began in 2016 teaching courses in Palestinian embroidery and lecturing at leading institutions, museums and universities around the world. Wafa has since been featured in major media outlets, including Vogue Magazine, which named her and her mother “the world’s leading guardians of tatreez”. Her curatorial debut "TATREEZ INHERITANCE" (2023) at the Museum of the Palestinian People in Washington DC highlights traditional Palestinian dresses circulating North America and the importance of reclamation in the diaspora. Wafa released her second publication “THOBNA” (2023) that celebrates Palestinian embroidery as a powerful form of resistance art over the past century.