The big satin duchesse fabric that Fatema Loukili, my heart mother gave me one afternoon in her sun-drenched apartment in Casablanca, was meant to become my wedding dress. It never did. But when one day we learned that Fatema was dying I woke with a vision of a dress filled with beautiful, colourful stitches made by women around this world. 

The Wedding Dress is an exploration of transmission and (female) kinship through the act of embroidery to overcome histories of violence. It follows a vagabonding needle and the secret confidences of women, whose imaginations build traditions, belonging, and senses of home. The choice of embroidery is no coincidence. It connects the past and present in a tapestry of encounters, journeys, and exchanges. It represents a common yet distinct heritage, primarily created to adorn and beautify, often crafted by women. Embroidery testifies to an ebbing past where time was left uncounted.

In each location, Anna orchestrates an intimate setting, a living tableau with women who embroider stitches into the cloth. These scenes are set up as one visual frame, a participative and unpredictable theatre. In conversation, they share their intentions, inherited stories, their techniques. Through these processes a political portrait of women’s time, beauty, and legacy unfolds, along their own personal stories.