Wafa Ghnaim

Wafa Ghnaim is an American-born Palestinian businesswoman, writer, and artist. Wafa began learning Palestinian embroidery from her mother when she was two years old. Throughout her life, she traveled alongside her mother for exhibits, lectures and demonstrations around the U.S. from folklore festivals in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to elementary schools in Portland, Oregon. Today, she travels the world teaching Palestinian embroidery skills across the diaspora to students who have long yearned to connect with their artistic and cultural heritage. In 2016, Wafa self-published her book Tatreez & Tea: Embroidery and Storytelling in the Palestinian Diaspora that chronicles diaspora embroidery traditions in her family, rooted from her mother’s home village in Safad, Palestine. In 2018, in honor of her work on Tatreez & Tea, Wafa was awarded a once in a lifetime New York Foundation for the Arts Artist Fellowship in the folk arts discipline. Wafa and her family currently reside in Washington, DC.