Across the Arab region, these weaving techniques share sensibilities, motifs and methods, reflecting a cultural continuity where material knowledge is passed across borders and through generations. These crafts are sustained not only by technique but by memory. They are passed from hand to hand, preserving knowledge that is embedded in gesture, rhythm and touch.
The Thread That Binds reinterprets these traditions as an evolving architectural installation. Instead of a finished object on display, the piece grows throughout the exhibition. Artisans and visitors weave together. The structure expands slowly, through time, through participation and through the presence of many hands working in dialogue.
The installation highlights the weavers as central protagonists. Their knowledge is the architecture. Their gestures shape the form. By bringing the act of weaving into the exhibition space, the work shifts attention from the final product to the process of making, where cultural identity is continuously formed.
Weaving becomes a performance. A choreography of repetition. A collective act of remembering.
The installation honors the role of Khous and Khaizaran in daily life. These crafts were never ornamental; they shaped homes, gatherings and seasonal labor. They connected communities to local resources and to the land itself. The Thread That Binds celebrates these traditions as living art forms. It invites reflection on slowness, materiality and interdependence. Each woven line marks a moment. Each pattern carries a memory. Together, they form a future built from inherited knowledge and shared experience.
