Tarwida

"We spent all our lives walking into other people's museums. The time had come to walk into our own."

Today, we sit down with Faisal Saleh — Palestinian entrepreneur, photographer, and founder of the Palestine Museum US — to talk about what it took to build the first permanent Palestinian museum in the Western Hemisphere, and what it means to tell Palestine's story through art when so much of the world refuses to look.

Faisal walks through his early life in Al-Bireh and the entrepreneurial instinct that eventually led him to found his own institution in Woodbridge, Connecticut in 2018. We discuss the founding of the Edinburgh branch on Dundas Street, the vandalism the museum has weathered, and two consecutive years of rejection from the Venice Biennale before this year's acceptance.

The centerpiece of the episode is the story behind the exhibit "Gaza, No Words" — a collection of 100 embroidered Tatreez panels created in a single year by 60 Palestinian women in refugee camps in Lebanon and the West Bank, documenting the Gaza genocide stitch by stitch. Faisal describes the process behind the panels, the emotional weight of the imagery, and why the exhibit's title was left intentionally wordless. He closes with his plans for a future Gaza Genocide Museum and a forthcoming book. 

This episode is hosted by Afaf Shawwa Bibi. Our associate producers are Zeena Shehadeh and Ahmed Ashour. Lead producer is Tala Elissa. Executive producer is Zina Jardaneh. Social media by Rajae Shehadeh. Research and copywriting by Dima Sharif. Branding by Sara Sukhun. Theme music includes excerpts from Clarissa Bitar, The Popular Art Centre - مركز الفن الشعبي & Rim Banna. Intro music by Terez Sliman. 

The episode was recorded on May 28th, 2026. Watch the episode on YouTube here.

Tarwida is a series of conversations that bring Palestinian arts, culture, and heritage to the forefront. We hear from artists, including writers, filmmakers, musicians, architects, and more, about their very own Palestine.

In a nutshell, if you want to know more about (Creative) Palestine, this is the place to be.

Follow us on socials @tarwidapodcast

Relevant links & resources:

Learn more about The Palestine Museum US (Woodbridge, CT)

Learn more about the Palestine Museum Scotland (Edinburgh branch, 13a Dundas Street)

Dive deeper into the exhibit, "Gaza, No Words"

Read more about Faisal Saleh

Palestinian History Tapestry (merger partner, original 12-year tapestry project)

Scotsman coverage of the Edinburgh branch opening 

New Haven Arts Paper profile on the museum's growth from Woodbridge to Edinburgh

Donate/support the museum

In this episode of Tarwida, we sit down with Noora Baker, Head of Production at El-Funoun Palestinian Dance Troupe — one of the most celebrated Palestinian folk dance companies in the world, founded in 1979 with over 300 members and 16 major productions.

Noora takes us through her journey as a dancer since 1987, beginning at age seven during the First Intifada, to leading production on El-Funoun's latest work Ya Sahib Al-Tayr (2025). We explore the roots of Palestinian dabke, its evolution from village ritual to political symbol, and the tension between organic street dance and choreographed stage performance.

We also discuss how El-Funoun preserves Palestinian folklore, refusing politically conditioned funding, and the power of collective movement as a form of resistance. 

The episode is hosted and produced by Tala Elissa. Our associate producer Zeena Shehadeh. Lead producer is Tala Elissa. Executive producer is Zina Jardaneh. Social media by Rajae Shehadeh. Research and copywriting by Dima Sharif. Branding by Sara Sukhun. Theme music includes excerpts from Clarissa Bitar, The Popular Art Centre - مركز الفن الشعبي & Rim Banna. Intro music by Terez Sliman. 

 

The episode was recorded on January 9th, 2026. Watch the episode on YouTube here. 

 

Tarwida is a series of conversations that bring Palestinian arts, culture, and heritage to the forefront. We hear from artists, including writers, filmmakers, musicians, architects, and more, about their very own Palestine.

In a nutshell, if you want to know more about (Creative) Palestine, this is the place to be.

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Follow us on socials @tarwidapodcast

Relevant links and resources:

Visit El-Funoun’s website and take a look at their online shop

Read Fi Ma'ma'ana al-Raqs (In the Mayhem of Dance) 

Follow El-Funoun (@elfunoun_troupe)

Learn more about Ghassan Kanafani

Learn more about the Popular Arts Center

Productions Mentioned

Ya Sahib At-Tair (2025)

Marj Bin Amer

Mash'al

Talat (Bara'em Al-Funoun)

In this episode of Tarwida, we share a remarkable conversation with Dr. Salman Abu Sitta — cartographer, historian, and founder of the Palestine Land Society — recorded on the Makdisi Street podcast.

Dr. Abu Sitta was born in Al-Maa'in near Khan Yunis and was expelled from his home as a 10-year-old boy during the Nakba of 1948. Over the following 75 years, he transformed personal loss into one of the most comprehensive documentary projects on Palestine ever undertaken: mapping 1,200 villages, cataloguing 50,000 place names, opening boxes sealed since 1877, and calculating — with meticulous precision — that 88% of the land Palestinian refugees were expelled from remains effectively vacant today.

In this conversation, Dr. Abu Sitta speaks about oral history and the colonial archive, the meaning of UN Resolution 194, the legal and practical feasibility of the right of return, the fight to preserve UNRWA, and why the question of Palestine is, at its core, a question of people being kept from going home.

He is 85 years old. He was there. And he is still counting.

Thank you to the Makdisi Street podcast for allowing us to share this episode with the Tarwida audience. This episode is hosted by the Makdisi brothers, Kareem, Sari, and Ossama and produced by Sina. Intro by Afaf Shawwa Bibi. The episode was adapted by Tarwida associate producer Zeena Shehadeh. Lead producer is Tala Elissa. Executive producer is Zina Jardaneh. Social media by Rajae Shehadeh. Research and copywriting by Dima Sharif. Branding by Sara Sukhun. Theme music includes excerpts from Clarissa Bitar, The Popular Art Centre - مركز الفن الشعبي & Rim Banna. Intro music by Terez Sliman. 

The episode was originally published on February 7th, 2024. 

Tarwida is a series of conversations that bring Palestinian arts, culture, and heritage to the forefront. We hear from artists, including writers, filmmakers, musicians, architects, and more, about their very own Palestine.

 

In a nutshell, if you want to know more about (Creative) Palestine, this is the place to be.

Follow us on socials @tarwidapodcast

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Relevant links and Resources: 

Watch the YouTube version on the Makdisi Street podcast’s channel

Subscribe to the Makdisi Street podcast and listen to their other episodes

Read Dr. Salman Abu Sitta’s article, "I could have been one of those who broke through the siege on October 7" 

Learn more about the Palestine Land Society

Read Dr. Salman Abu Sitta’s book, Mapping My Return

Learn more about AUB’s Palestinian Land Studies program

Take a look at Dr. Salman’s Atlases

‘The Atlas of Palestine (1917-1966)’

‘The Atlas of Palestine (1871-1877)’

‘The Return Journey Atlas’ 



 

Chapters: 

00:00:00 - Introduction 

00:01:00 Meet Dr. Salman Abu Sitta 

00:04:00 - A Family Rooted in Palestine 

00:07:00 - The Night of the Nakba 

00:09:00 - From Refugee to Scholar 

00:12:00 - Nationality: Uncertain 

00:15:00 - Excavating the Colonial Archive 

00:25:00 - They Carried the Memory in Their Head 

00:35:00 - The War on Archives 

00:39:00 - Rebuilding Palestine: The Architecture Competition 

00:43:00 - Renaming the Land 

00:47:00 - Resolution 194 and the Right of Return 

00:52:00 - 88% of Palestinian Village Sites Remain Vacant 

01:03:00 - UNRWA, Refugee Status, and the Fight Over 194 

01:23:00 - Liberation, Law, and Steadfastness

In this re-release of one of our favorite conversations from last year, multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and director of the Palestinian Museum in Birzeit, Amer Shomali, sits down for a conversation about art, identity, and resistance.

Amer shares his journey from a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria to studying architecture at Birzeit University, and the chance encounter that redirected his life toward his true passion in art and film. We explore three of his most iconic works: the viral Visit Palestine poster (2009), the lipstick portrait of Leila Khaled (The Icon, 2011), and his acclaimed animated documentary The Wanted 18 - the story of 18 cows that became a symbol of non-violent Palestinian resistance during the First Intifada.

We then turn to the Palestinian Museum, which Amer took over as director on October 8th, 2023, just one day after the genocide in Gaza began. He speaks about the challenges of running a museum when 80% of the national collection has been looted, and 80% of the audience lives in diaspora, and how the museum is redefining what a cultural institution can be. From the living exhibition This Is Not an Exhibition featuring Gazan artists, to the open-source traveling exhibition Gaza Remains: The Story, to the Digital Archives now holding over 400,000 documents — this episode explores the necessity of cultural resilience.

This conversation was recorded on December 1st, 2024.

This episode is hosted by Afaf Shawwa Bibi. Tarwida’s lead producer is Tala Elissa. Our executive producer is Zina Jardaneh. Our associate producers are Zeena Shehadeh and Ahmed Ashour. Social media by Leen Karadsheh. Research and copywriting by Dima Sharif. Branding by Sara Sukhun. Theme music includes excerpts from Clarissa Bitar, The Popular Art Centre - مركز الفن الشعبي & Rim Banna. Intro music by Terez Sliman. 

Tarwida Podcast is a series of conversations that bring Palestinian arts, culture and heritage to the forefront. We hear from artists including writers, filmmakers, musicians, architects, culinary practitioners and more about Creative Palestine. 

Relevant links and Resources: 

Connect with Amer Shomali on Instagram @amershomali

Visit Amer’s website

Learn more about The Palestinian Museum, The Icon- Leila Khaled, Visit Palestine poster

Watch The Wanted 18 trailer

The Palestinian Museum Digital Archive

The travelling exhibition: Gaza Remains the Story

Bassem Khandaqji is a Palestinian novelist from Nablus who spent more than 2 decades in Israeli prison, sentenced to three life terms. In 2024, while still behind bars,  he won the international book prize for Arabic fiction (Arabic Booker Prize) for his novel Mask of the Sky (قناع بلون السماء). Released in October 2024 in a prisoner exchange deal, he now lives in exile in Cairo.

In this episode of Tarwida, Bassem Khandaqji speaks about writing novels under occupation, while writing was forbidden — drafting by hand at 4am, making three copies of every manuscript, and smuggling completed works out of detention. 

The conversation covers the cultural and academic life inside Israeli prisons, its destruction after October 7 — what Khandaqji calls cultural genocide. He discusses his novels in depth, including how he spent a year immersed in Hebrew-language media to write his Israeli protagonist — thinking in Hebrew, writing in Arabic. He introduces Adab al-Ishtibak — Literature of Engagement — a framework for anti-colonial literature that dismantles Zionist ideology. He reflects on Yaffa, Jerusalem, Palestinian exile, and Mahmoud Darwish, and discusses his next novel about late fellow prisoner Walid Daqqa.

باسم خندقجي روائي فلسطيني من نابلس، قضى أكثر من عقدين في السجون الإسرائيلية بحكم بثلاثة مؤبدات. في 2024، فاز وهو خلف القضبان بالجائزة العالمية للرواية العربية (البوكر العربي) عن روايته "قناع بلون السماء"، وأُفرج عنه في أكتوبر 2024 ضمن صفقة تبادل، ويعيش اليوم في المنفى بالقاهرة.

في هذه الحلقة من ترويدة، يتحدث خندقجي عن الكتابة تحت الاحتلال — يكتب بخط يده في الرابعة فجراً، ينسخ كل مخطوطة ثلاث مرات، ويهرّبها خارج الاحتجاز. يتناول الحياة الثقافية داخل السجون الإسرائيلية وما لحق بها من دمار بعد ال 7 من أكتوبر، وعاماً أمضاه منغمساً في الإعلام العبري لكتابة شخصيته الإسرائيلية، ومفهوم "أدب الاشتباك"، وروايته القادمة عن الأسير الشهيد وليد دقة.

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This episode is hosted and produced by Tala Elissa. Our executive producer is Zina Jardaneh. Our associate producer is Zeena Shehadeh. Social media by Leen Karadsheh. Research and copywriting by Dima Sharif. Branding by Sara Sukhun.

This conversation was recorded in person on February 8, 2026, in Cairo. You can watch it with English subtitles on YouTube.

Tarwida is a series of conversations that bring Palestinian arts, culture, and heritage to the forefront. We hear from artists, including writers, filmmakers, musicians, architects, and more, about their very own Palestine. In a nutshell, if you want to know more about (Creative) Palestine, this is the place to be.

Follow us on socials @tarwidapodcast

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Relevant links and Resources: 

Follow Bassem on Instagram (@bassem_khandaqji)

Get Bassem’s 2024 Booker Prize-winning novel — A Mask the Color of the Sky

Get Bassem’s novel —  Misk al-Kifayah

Read Bassem’s Article – Iced Scripts for Sale

Read  Hanna Mina — The End of a Brave Man

Read Fatima Mernissi —The forgotten queens of Islam

Read Adania Shibli — Minor Detail

Read Mahmoud Darwish poetry

Learn more about Walid Daqqa 

Learn more about Syrian director, Najdat Esmail Anzur

Learn more about Syrian prison literature.

Watch The End of Brave Men