Inspired by thobes from Ramallah

A piece of Palestine on your wall!

Bint el Shams’s clay thobs are a stunning way to preserve Palestinian cultural heritage and decorate your home with a piece of Palestine, the artist makes these clay dresses with passion and love. Each thobe is inspired by a traditional Palestinian dress from different areas in Palestine. An artistic sculpture that takes considerable time and effort through its several stages to produce every piece. Each piece takes the artist one week to 10 days to mold, dry, carve, paint in acrylics, and glaze. And the outcome is unique to each piece.

Shatha Safi, born in Dheisheh Palestinian refugee camp located just south of Bethlehem, is a self-taught visual artist who draws inspiration from Palestinian history, heritage and resistance. She works in inked sketches, clay sculptures, acrylic paintings, and type design. Safi is the founder of Bint El-Shams, a conceptual art project which makes use of mixed media to render familiar cultural symbols in a fresh light.

In Shatha’s own words:
“ I began creating ceramic Thob (dress) as an artistic endeavour to preserve and share our vibrant Palestinian cultural heritage as a Palestinian female refugee and as a Palestinian artist, Art is one of the most important ways to resist and continuity to reach freedom, and when we look at our Palestinian history and heritage that is full of arts and creativity, I feel proud to belong to this heritage, which creates in me many inspirations, especially the Palestinian women dress (Thob) the creativity in every region in mixing colours and fabrics. It's pure art, not just a dress. Preserving this heritage from theft And the various attempts of the Israeli occupation to obliterate our identity and our history is a national duty for every Palestinian woman and every artist.
Bint Al Shams are precious artefacts of Palestinian cultural heritage, each ceramic thob is carefully crafted from clay and lovingly hand painted by me. Inspired by historical thobes representative of different cities and villages in Palestine It’s an artistic idea I created five years ago, and it is a piece of art in the form of models inspired by our heritage represented in the authentic Palestinian dress.”