the peasant woman’s embroidered dress reflects a mapping of the land, with the style and pattern of each embroidered dress unique to each region or village of origin. The dress along with artefacts from the peas- ant’s home in general and the woman’s sphere in particular – such as traditional cook- ing utensils, baskets and earthenware – have increasingly become important markers of Palestinian identity. As Edward Said suggests: ‘Photographs, dresses, objects, severed from their original locale, the rituals of speech and custom: Much reproduced, enlarged, thematised, embroidered and passed around, they are strands in a web of affiliation we use to tie ourselves to our identity and each other.Palestine Painting by Nabil Anani Canvas Prints Available for Sale

The feminisation of agricultural labour in the Occupied Territories (shrinking plots of land could no longer sustain households and men were forced to seek employment elsewhere) reinforced the metaphorical association of women with the landscape.10 This motif gendered the homeland in the form of the female figure of the motherland, and was explored extensively in Palestinian literature, music and theatre, and significantly influenced the visual arts. Thus the body of the woman and the land became interchangeable. Ghassan Hage suggests that the use of the mother to signify the nation distinguishes the qualities of the nation as, ‘caring, protective, and nurturing – a homeland of bodily comfort and security.Palestine Painting by Nabil Anani Canvas Prints Available for Sale