About this project

Sussiya is a small village, located in the South Mount Hebron region in Palestine. This region is one of most beautiful areas of Palestine, yet life there is complicated. People live in caves and in tents. The villages are not recognised by the government and people have to fend for themselves in order to get the most basic services. On top of all that, they suffer from the hostility of neighboring settlers.

While visiting, we noticed that there is a tradition of crafts, very particular to that region. The climate, the life in caves, the available materials of the region, all create challenges and opportunities, giving rise to a fascinating material culture that is specific to that very area. Many of these traditions are alive and others are slowly being forgotten.

We want to spend a couple of months in the region, documenting all of this culture (past and present) using a collaborative method we call real-time documentary embroidery. Basically, it involved sitting around and embroidering with whoever is interested and letting the conversation evolve naturally. We usually do this in public, everyone is invited. We embroider what we see and what we hear, leaving behind a document, a textile representation of the experience we all shared.

Things we want people to tell us about: Textile, Furniture making, Recipes, Natural medicines and herbs games and toys ...and anything else that comes up in conversation.

The final result of this process will be a large scale tapestry and a small booklet, representing the culture of the South Mount Hebron region as it was told and embroidered by the people that live there (in collaboration with us). Sale of the booklet will fund other cultural and innovative projects in the region. One of which is the Sussiya Creative and Learning Space (more about the space later in the text).

Why use embroidery instead of photography or video? doesn’t it take lot of time?

Well, we need this time spent embroidering, telling stories and becoming part of the places and people we are discovering.

This technique forces us to select the information we embroider, focusing on the most important parts. This way, we process the information as we represent it. We stitch new details as things happen around us, reaching an embroidery that is the image of our sustained presence in particular place.

We most often do this in areas and neighbourhoods that are undergoing some sort of transformation. We’ve already embroidered in Cairo, Barcelona, Bristol and Belgrade. Some of the results of these past projects serve as the rewards we are offering here as thanks for your support.

www.bbva.irational.org/documentary_embroidery/

During the course of this project we will be collaborating with two interesting initiatives in the South Mount Hebron region: The Sussiya Creative and Learning Space and The Villages Group.

The Sussiya Creative and Learning Space was created in 2010 in response to the community members’ desire to learn and express themselves in a creative manner. The space was built with a collaboration amongst the local Palestinian community, Israelis, and Internationals. Underlying the construction of such a place is the notion that it will create a space where people can freely associate, exchange ideas and skills in both formal and informal manners whilst being economically sustainable by using the preexisting resources within the area.

The Villages Group have a long history of collaborating with the local villages in the south Mount Hebron region. We will need their help in putting us in touch with people engaged in the practices we are interested in researching, and in giving us counseling regarding the region and it’s history. The Villages Group has already been very much involved in the development of this project.

Our project, being part of a larger set of projects organized by The Creative and Learning Space and The Villages Group, is part of a more general effort to help bring visibility to the people living in the region, their lives and their culture.