Poster Design, Souq Al Quds / Local Market, 5/2025

The poster was Designed by Nadeem Mazen, who works as an exhibition curator and coordinator.

Nadeem is the Co-ordinator of the Souq Al Quds Project

The visual design of the event was inspired by the Palestinian tahrira stitch, found in traditional dresses from Jerusalem or Bethlehem, both in color and form. The design incorporates several primary colors drawn from these garments.

The central idea behind using this motif lies first in its name, and second in its deep, somber colors. After the Nakba, these darker tones became more common in embroidery and dressmaking, particularly in villages and Palestinian areas that had been destroyed or depopulated, symbolizing grief and mourning.

The design prominently features black, especially in the lines, alongside dark blue, red, yellow, and navy. These were traditional dress colors, but after the Nakba, black became the foundation, expressing resilience and resistance.

This stitch and dress style transformed into a symbol of belonging and resistance through clothing, serving as a silent expression of collective mourning for Palestine’s suffering. The colors were not merely aesthetic or decorative, but part of women’s cultural resistance, especially in the face of attempts to suppress national symbols. Later, the colors of the Palestinian flag were woven into the dresses when the flag itself was banned, making traditional clothing a vital and enduring medium of expression and resistance.