Stitching the Tears | PANEL DISCUSSION

Stitching the Tears: Conversations Around the Quilt, a public talk with Amy Abdelnoor, Aya Haidar, Hala Hanina, Jane Thakoordin and contributions from the Each Child a Light community. Through presentations and roundtable discussion we will explore the key themes of the Each Child a Light project: the connections between cloth and resistance; the Palestinian solidarity movement and the struggle for mourning during a genocide; the power of collective stitching to create pathways to hope, activism and ultimately kinship.

SPEAKERS:

Amy Abdelnoor is a novelist, writer and English teacher. She lived in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and later under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank during the second intifada, and her debut novel, Ever Land grew out of these experiences. Shortlisted for the 2023 Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize it will be published by Penguin Random House in 2026. Amy is a member of Critical Collective, a woman’s group advocating against racism and crimes against humanity and is on the Board of Trustees of the Hanoon Foundation.

Aya Haidar is a British Lebanese artist who has exhibited internationally. She has a BA in Fine Arts from Slade School of Fine Art and an MSc in NGOs and Development from the London School of Economics. Her work is held in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum (UK), the Guggenheim and the Jameel collection. She also undertakes social art projects, drawing on the ideas and techniques in her personal practice. Influenced by heritage and experience Aya employs found or disposable objects and stitch to construct icons of contemporary labour, displacement, domesticity, womanhood and memory that are both poetic and powerful.

Hala Hanina is a social and political activist from Gaza, working towards a PhD on violence experienced by Palestinian women under Israeli occupation. She has recently been writing about Reprocide: Examining the Hidden Gendered Dimension of Israel's Genocide in Gaza. She is a journalist with Palestine Deep Dive.

Jane Thakoordin is a creativity and mental health specialist and a participatory artist. Never solitary, but always shaped by the voices, hands and imaginations of others, her work is deeply rooted in her Guyanese heritage, where colour and texture are celebrated as powerful tools of expression and connection. Jane was recipient of the 2023 New Art Exchange Reside Residency Prize. Her contribution to the Grenfell Memorial Quilt Project - working with 68 UK artists to make a bird for each of the 72 people who lost their lives in the Grenfell Tower - is currently on show at Milano Triennale 2025.

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