For countless generations, Palestinians have lived in deep connection with their land — foraging, harvesting, and healing through its plants. Today, this relationship is tightly controlled under occupation: farmlands are confiscated, trees uprooted, and laws imposed that forbid the picking or growing of plants that have shaped our culinary, medicinal, and cultural traditions. This loss is not only material but emotional — a daily reminder of dispossession and resilience.

Through designing and embroidering new tatreez motifs, I document this control and the suffering it inflicts, transforming it into an act of resistance. Each motif represents a “forbidden plant” — a story of what has been taken, and what continues to endure. By reimagining these symbols through embroidery and mixed media works, I explore how thread, fabric, and form can reclaim narratives and restore connection to the land. This ongoing project is both documentation and defiance — a creative testimony of memory, identity, and belonging.