Palestinian textile artist Areen Hassan explores cultural heritage through large-scale textile installations inspired by traditional Palestinian embroidery. Areen grew up between different regional traditions of Palestine — each with its own accents, colours, patterns, and visual language. Today, these cultural roots remain at the centre of her artistic practice.

After studying textiles, Hassan continued her journey abroad, moving first to London and later to Stockholm for internships and artistic development. Living outside Palestine became a turning point in the way she understood her own identity.

“Moving between different countries changed me a lot,” she says. “The more I spoke with people about their backgrounds and traditions, the more connected I felt to my Palestinian roots.”

Her works — built through the painstaking process of unravelling threads by hand — combine contemporary textile art with Palestinian embroidery traditions, transforming craft into immersive installations that speak about land, memory, women, and cultural continuity.

In this conversation, we spoke about her childhood in Palestine, the symbolism of red throughout her practice, the healing nature of textile work, and why she chooses to focus on beauty, tradition, and preservation rather than destruction.

— Areen, your work is deeply connected to your roots and heritage. Could you tell me more about your roots — your family?

— Of course! My mother is from Jerusalem, and my father is from North Palestine. In Palestine, every region has its own culture, its own traditions, even its own way of speaking. My father’s side and my mother’s side are very different — the accents are different, the food is different, the whole atmosphere and mentality are different.

I was born in Jerusalem, and later we moved to Nazareth. Looking back, I think that was the best combination for me because I got to experience different parts of Palestinian culture in a very real way.

Since I was a child, I knew I wanted to work with textiles. At that time, though, I didn’t really understand textile as a field on its own — I associated it mostly with fashion. When you see traditional Palestinian dresses, you notice the embroidery, the patterns, the details, but first of all, you see the dress itself.

After finishing school, I realised there was an entire world of textiles beyond fashion design, and I decided to study textiles for four years.

— Did your family support your decision?

— My father was worried. He told me, 'Okay, but maybe this is something you can learn on the side. How are you going to earn money? How are you going to support yourself?’ He was asking because he cared. He wanted to make sure I would be able to build a stable life for myself. Being an artist is difficult, especially in the beginning, and he knew that.

Now my father is very proud. And over time, he began to understand what I am doing. Now, he is actually the one encouraging me whenever I feel uncertain. That support — not only from him but from my whole family — means a lot to me.

— You were interested in textiles from a very young age. Can you remember your early approaches to it?

— As a little girl, I was always connected to colours and fabrics. Even when I went shopping with my mom to buy new clothes, I remember how different my taste already was. My mom would help my sister choose outfits that were more classic, but for myself, I always wanted to choose my own clothes and make my own combinations.

I was drawn to very bold colours, like red and gold. I loved unusual mixes and strong contrasts, even in the way I dressed.

That connection to colour and pattern was always there. When I started drawing, I was constantly drawing textile patterns, ornaments, and colour combinations. And at home, I would use whatever materials we had around me — cutting fabric, stitching things together, experimenting with textiles in my own way. Actually, it all started with my Barbie dolls!

— And now, we can clearly see different shades of red throughout your work — pinks, deep reds, darker tones — but it always comes back to red in some way. We see it in Flowing Threads, the Unfold series, and many other works. Why do you think you are so connected to this colour?

— Since I was a child, red has always been my colour. And when I started experimenting with textiles as a medium, I naturally kept choosing red again and again. You can still see it throughout all of my work. Red is always there in some way — the shades can change, the combinations can change, but red is always there.

I have often wondered why I feel so connected to this colour. Maybe it comes from Palestinian embroidery, because red is the main colour in traditional Palestinian embroidery. It is the dominant colour you grow up seeing everywhere. So maybe, without realising it, that stayed with me since childhood. Maybe red became part of my visual memory because it was such a strong presence around me growing up.

— You grew up in an area of conflict. Some artists show how war affects them in their work. But with you, I wonder if maybe it is there in a quieter way, in small details or hidden messages. Do you show the war in your work? Do you show how it affected you and your family?

— In my work, I don’t like to focus on the dark or negative side. I prefer to show the beauty of our culture.

I think that, for me as a Palestinian artist, this is the most powerful way to speak about Palestine. There are many artists whose work reflects war, trauma, or scenes of destruction and the impact those experiences have had on them, and I really respect that approach. Mine is just different. I want to focus on the beauty of Palestinian culture — our traditions and our community. Showing beauty is also a form of resistance.

For me, this is a way to protect the culture and carry it forward from one generation to the next.

We have culture, history, identity and craftsmanship. We have our embroidery, our people, our traditions, our stories. This is what I want people to see through my work.

War will always remain in history. People will always know there was a war and that people suffered. If you go to Palestine, to Gaza, you can feel it immediately.

But at the same time, even under destruction, people continue living. They still cook, dance, laugh, and send videos to each other. Life continues.

— Has art ever been a form of healing for you?

— I think art is always healing. Even the process of making art — that is my meditation.

People often don’t believe that I remove the threads by hand, one by one, to unveil the fabric. They ask me, ‘How can you do this?’ And I always tell them: this is my meditation. Because when I am working, it’s the only moment when I am completely disconnected from everything around me. I am only focused on the work and on myself. For me, art is the best healing.

And it is not only about creating art. Even when I experience art as a viewer, I feel its energy very strongly. When I see dark artworks that reflect pain or sadness, I feel heavy myself. But when I see bright colours and light in art, I feel happy.

— Was there ever a time in your life when you felt completely disconnected from yourself, and art somehow helped bring you back?

— When the war in Gaza started in 2023, it was an extremely difficult period for me. As an artist, I felt completely disconnected from everything. I think all Palestinians went through that feeling in the beginning. It was impossible to focus on work or on normal life when you were constantly seeing your people in pain.

For months, we were living with the news twenty-four hours a day. Everyone was trying to understand what was happening, and emotionally, it was very heavy.

But after around six months, something changed in me. I realised that the war had actually made me feel even closer to my roots than before. It made me want to create more work inspired by Palestine, by embroidery, by our culture and identity.

I felt a strong need to protect my culture through my art. And I think many Palestinians experienced this in their own way, even outside of art. People became more connected to their roots, to their identity, to preserving what belongs to them.

The situation was still painful, and nothing had really changed around us, but after those first months, I was finally able to return to work. And when I came back to creating, I wanted the work to speak even more about Palestine.

— What was the first thing you created after that period?

— It was Revelation. I completed it in October 2024 — exactly one year after the war began.

This work is also inspired by my roots, but here I wanted to focus on the flowing movement of water in Islamic gardens.

For me, flowing water represents infinity — something eternal, something that continues forever. It also carries a sense of peace and calmness. That is what I wanted to highlight in this piece: the idea of something timeless and peaceful.

— I’d also love to talk about your work, The Long Weave. You created it together with Palestinian refugee women living in South Lebanon, right? How did it happen?

— This project started in 2022, when I participated in a group exhibition in Lebanon. One of the visitors who saw my work was a woman named Rula Alami. She works with an organisation called the Inaash Association, which collaborates with Palestinian women artisans.

After the exhibition, she sent me a message saying, ‘I saw your work, and I loved it. Would you like to collaborate with us and create something together with the women?’

The women I collaborated with are Palestinian women living in refugee camps in Lebanon. Their families left Palestine during the Nakba in 1948, and many of them still live in very difficult conditions outside their homeland. But despite that, for more than seventy years, they have continued preserving Palestinian embroidery and passing the craft from one generation to another in an incredibly professional and dedicated way.

That was very important for my concept. Even when Palestinians are physically separated from the land, the connection to it still exists through memory, craft, embroidery, and tradition. That is why collaborating with these women felt so meaningful for this series.

During the process of creating the work, the war reached South Lebanon, where these women live. They had to leave their homes and move to another part of Lebanon, and because of that, the work stopped for almost two months. They simply couldn’t return home to continue working on the embroidery. So in many ways, the war also became part of the story of the work itself.

In 2025, this collaboration finally came to life through the series Weaving the Land Back. The women behind the embroidery are Samar Kabouli, Wafaa Idris, Safaa Idris, Intisar Albashir, Rana Ismael, and Muna Dahwish.

— Now, your latest work, Her Hands, Her Land. I feel like this piece is very different from your previous works. Of course, we can still see the red there, but here the dominant colours feel different. There is much more yellow, much more blue. I would really love to know the story behind this work.

— The work is inspired by a traditional Palestinian dress called Majdal, which comes from Gaza. Historically, these dresses were dyed with indigo blue. Palestinian women used indigo as a protective colour — they believed blue carried protection.

That is why the main colour of the work became indigo blue. I wanted to highlight this idea of protection, especially because the piece is inspired by Gaza. For me, the blue has become almost like a symbolic protection for Gaza today.

But even though blue became the central colour, I still wanted to keep red present in the hands. For me, the concept was always connected to the women’s hands and their relationship to the land. The red refers back to Palestinian embroidery and to the labour of Palestinian women, because embroidery, craft, and textile traditions are all made by hand. So I wanted the hands to carry that red connection.

— Could you look at your artistic journey as different periods or phases?

— So I think, in the beginning, my work was mostly about experimentation and self-discovery. I was trying to understand myself through textiles — to understand what I wanted to create as an artist. During that time, I worked on smaller-scale pieces and produced much more than I do now, because I was constantly experimenting with materials, colours, techniques, and forms. It was less about final works or concepts, and more about exploring my hand, my identity, my visual language. I think this period lasted from around 2012 until 2015.

Then came another phase, when I started focusing more on research, studies, and concept development. I became more interested in creating works that could speak for themselves without needing explanation. I wanted people to look at the work and feel connected to it immediately, without needing to read a text beside it.

That is also when I began working on larger-scale pieces. And for me, it wasn’t only about making something physically bigger. I became interested in creating an experience around the work. Large-scale pieces allow people to move around them, to see them from far away, to feel surrounded by them. People can even see themselves reflected through the threads. I think that is why I became so connected to large installations.

And now, I think I am entering another period — one where I want to focus even more deeply on Palestinian embroidery and continue bringing it into my work as much as I can.

— What are you working on right now? What can we expect from you next?

— Right now, I am working on a new series which is also inspired by Palestinian embroidery. The new series is still connected to the idea of Her Hands, Her Land. It is a concept I want to continue exploring, but this time I’ll focus on a different part of Palestine.

You will definitely still see threads, and you will definitely still see red. But this project will be more installation-based. Instead of one large piece, it will consist of around five different pieces that people can move around and experience physically.

In Her Hands, Her Land, there was one large work. In Weaving the Land Back, there were three pieces, but they were still presented more traditionally. This new work will feel more immersive — more like an environment or an experience that people enter and move through.

I think it will probably take me another five or six months to complete.