Tatreez Garden is a generative system trained on Palestinian embroidery patterns combined with plants important to Palestinian ecology, culture, and diet. These include an interactive generative platform, artistic prints and outputs, and video works. Reinterpreting tatreez as a computational craft, the project invites audiences to participate in a living archive that evolves across time and media: from digital generation to video installation to hand-embroidered textiles created in collaboration with Lali Pali, an initiative working with Palestinian women in refugee camps in Lebanon.
Tatreez, a form of Palestinian embroidery practised for generations, is a wearable art form of identity, resilience, and connection to land. Traditionally crafted by women, it carries cultural memory, agricultural motifs, and often encodes biographical details about the wearer.
Rather than claiming to preserve or translate traditional practices, the work explores what new forms of cultural transmission become possible when these patterns are encoded algorithmically. Users participate in this evolving archive by generating artifacts from curated collections, engaging with Palestinian collective memory and the continuities of Palestinian culture across media, time, and space.
