A stylised form of the word حداد (Ḥidād, Mourning) is the basic unit for the patterns developed over two large pieces and six small ones. This series stitched over several months was a response to the endless bad news and heartbreak of the past year in particular, acknowledging the grief caused by every loss of life or cultural heritage. But the point of it isn’t to underscore the bleakness of this moment in history. It’s that mourning is essential. We mourn because we love, and because we know the value of what is lost. That is itself a light in the darkness. Meanwhile those with no empathy, no human feeling, are incapable of mourning.
The use of stitching was instinctive: if you want to make something slowly and introspectively, there is something uniquely appropriate about the contained, rythmic working of needle and thread. Also on my mind was a small fact I learned about the otherwise colourful tatreez tradition: women signalled mourning by wearing dresses embroidered in nothing but indigo (the closest hue to black before synthetic dyes). Only when ready to emerge from grief, did they start integrating red details again.
So I brought out the indigo and dyed both paper and threads of silk and cotton, in different depths of blue…
Mourning I
Here حداد is repeated a total of 324 times – or 325, once you notice that they assemble to create a larger version of themselves*. For a while now I’ve been feeling like the seemingly endless, daily feed of losses is adding up to a huge background of grieving that is always there, regardless of the joy of individual moments. Using smaller words to make up a large ones made especially sense in this script, where it was a historically enjoyed feature.
(*It’s more or less visible depending on light. Photos don’t capture these blues very well.)
This piece was stitched with combed silk, which isn’t twisted, and so produces quite random and organic-looking variations in thickness. This thread has a strong sheen and can look almost metallic as it reflects the light.
Materials: Combed mulberry silk thread (kibisu silk), hand-dyed with indigo, stitched on paper.
Size: 55×55 cm
Completed: 30 June 2025.
Mourning II
Description: A more abstract pattern intended to evoke an explosion. But at the heart of this explosion is darkness, pushing out the light.
The thread used is cotton, which has a more matte appearance than silk, resulting in intense shades of indigo. The natural dye’s qualities and glow are in full evidence in this piece, which looks ever different depending on light conditions.
Mourning III
Just as I was compelled to make the two large pieces, I needed to work some red thread back in, because despite everything, Life returns. These smaller pieces allowed me to do this in different ways, and mark a return to something else. My work has been bearing witness to destruction for some time now, and I feel called to turn my attention to celebrating the still-living world once more.
1: A small version of Veils I, in gradations of blue combed silk.
2: Stitched in cotton, which creates regular lines where subtle colour variationscan be detected. Part of the ḥidad pattern is highlighted in madder-red silk to reveal the word أحد aḥad: the One, an attribute of the Divine.
3: Also cotton, over light indigo paper, with madder silk introducing the word حياة ḥayāt (Life) in the pattern: it takes up exactly the same square as حداد ḥidad.
4: Here the word ḥayāt is doing what life does best, growing organically across the pattern to reassert itself.
5: The neat lac-red thread contrasts with the more raw-looking combed silk.
6: Over a background of deepest indigo, the same red thread selectively takes over the whole pattern, so that what is left spells out One, One, One.