We are not numbers on the news, we are Queer/Trans Palestinians, and our love transcends empire. This work is dedicated to Queer/Trans Palestinians living in Palestine and to those in exile, living far from their Indigenous homelands. As a Palestinian lesbian artist living in North America, I created this work as an exploration of Queer Indigenous femininities.
This work imagines an answer to this question…what happens to the screams of genocides? Do they weave into our earthmothers’ soil or become sonorous dissidences reaching in-between the light and darkness into shadows of grief? Do their sound-resonances reach us all …those who witness, those who mourn, those who protest, those who justify, those who profit, and those that deny?
This is one imagining of our spiritual-terrestrial grief as it meets the embrace of our earthmother. The open-mouthed screams are lined with Tatreez, Indigenous Palestinian embroidery patterns. This design is found on the keffiyeh scarves. In the moment of the screams’ sounds, Poppies are born, and the screams become whispers. The screams fall to flower, creating a field of Poppies rooting into the soil of their homeland/mother. The screams’ whispers are the Poppies’ sway of breath.
Tatreez embroidery and textiles are an important spiritual and cultural inheritance, shown here to symbolize strong sumud, resistance to colonialism, timeless existence, and a feeling of returning home (a longing ever-present). Despite bloody genocides and ecocides, the Poppies show rooted growth and new life flourishing in close connection with our homeland/mother. The Poppies’ roots weave with the earth, transforming the diasporic transplantation of dislocated/fragmented memory as they seed tears and rage, yet continue rising in resilient beauty. The Poppies grow strong, fearless, and courageous as shown by their sharing of Tatreez with their homeland/mother.
Whispers’ Scream (Queer Tatreez) was born out of generational resistance to violent militarized colonialism and reflects a resolute embrace with the land that gives us birth, while speaking of dynamic transformations gathering collective strength fighting against our own erasure and empower new futures.
Artwork Title: Whispers’ Screams (Queer Tatreez)
Artistic Style: Queer Tatreez
Artist: Micaela Kaibni Raen
Series Name: Poppies’ Whispers
Series Number: Part One of a Four Part Series
Micaela Kaibni Raen is a Palestinian American creator, cultural worker, queer femme-dyke mother, and global Queer/Trans rights activist. She grew up in the Little Arabia community in California and graduated from Chapman University. During that time, she participated in the Radius of Arab American Writers, Inc., ACT UP!, and Queer Nation. She is most known for Queer Tatreez, a style of visual art and poetics inspired by Indigenous Palestinian Tatreez embroidery. She has been awarded the Yalda Award for Poetry as well as nominations for The Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her work appears in Bint el Nas; Mizna; Qafiyah Review; Chapter House; Yellow Medicine Review; The Poetry of Arab Women; El Ghourabaa; Ask the Night for a Dream; and Heaven Looks Like Us.
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