I’ve Heard the Bedouins Singing

In Rolla Tahir’s debut solo exhibition I’ve Heard the Bedouins Singing, she departs from her moving-image practice to create a suite of handwoven works made from celluloid and wool, merging her personal connections to filmmaking and the textile techniques of tatreez and Al Sadu.

In this series of weavings, Tahir wraps yarn around sprocket holes of 35mm filmstrips to form colourful geometric patterns with open-ended edges, occasionally leaving a few frames uncovered to reveal glowing windows of still images. The filmstrips are outtakes from Tahir’s independent work Int’maa (2018) as well as older commercial film trailers gleaned from a local theatre’s projection booth, including trailers from the Canadian cult classics I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing (1987) directed by Patricia Rozema and Bollywood/Hollywood (2002) directed by Deepa Mehta. While the machine-processed film surfaces are clear and glossy, Tahir’s hand-treated footage is cloudy and distressed from being immersed in oil and bleach, an experimental film technique she learned from Toronto-based filmmaker Eva Kolcze. In every weaving, celluloid forms varying structures beneath varying wool and consequently, film images are hidden or unhidden depending on what Tahir decides we can view. In Tahir’s hands, weaving becomes a form of film editing, drawing our attention to how women’s labour and resourcefulness cuts across cinema, art and craft.

Tahir’s weaving practice is inspired by childhood memories of her mother’s knitting, sewing and tatreez, an ancient embroidery technique traditionally practiced by Palestinian women and girls. Tatreez brings together specific colours and motifs to create symbols representing different stages of an individual’s life, regional differences and class differences. As a delicate and refined art form, tatreez plays an important role in preserving and passing on Palestinian history and heritage. While honouring the memories of her mother crafting, Tahir notes that the particular techniques she employs for the works in this exhibition are closer to Al Sadu, the Bedouin style which is woven for durability to withstand the nomadic living and desert conditions which shaped her life in Sudan, Kuwait and Egypt, before moving to Canada. Informed by a moving range of memories and geographies, I’ve Heard the Bedouins Singing meditates on the complexities of craft and placehood, preservation and resistance. Through and through, Tahir’s weavings are a process of splicing echoes.