Huda Baroudi and Maria Hibri Empower Underprivileged Women in Tripoli
In 2023, Ruwwad Al Tanmeya approached us to mentor underprivileged women in Tripoli as part of a cash-for-work project funded by BMZ and implemented by Ruwwad Al Tanmeya Lebanon, in partnership with GIZ.
We visited Ruwwad’s community center regularly to introduce the women to the art of assemblage and textile manipulation. Assemblage embodies the philosophy of bringing together smaller parts to form a whole, and we thought it would be an ideal way to pass on this age-old tradition to this group of incredible women.
We formed 9 groups of 9 women each and asked them to produce tapestries using fabrics, embroidery, and crochet scavenged from the second-hand market in Tripoli. The resulting tapestries on display in this exhibition tell the stories of these women, sewn into the pieces through their knowledge and experiences of life. Each quilt is an identity marker, a reflection of the individual stories that define the women who created them.