Dina Nazmi Khorchid explores trauma, memory, and nature through textile art

Palestinian artist Dina Nazmi Khorchid creates textured landscapes and textile installations that address displacement, ecological grief, and personal trauma. Her work, including the 2025 piece The Color I Hate the Most is Rubble & Smoke, responds to the Beirut explosion and PTSD, using colors like reds, browns, purples, and rusts to evoke haunting imagery from Gaza and global wildfires. In the Land, Untitled series (2023–24), she depicts submerged trees as ghostly forms, with black ripples symbolizing loss. Water appears in pieces like Estuary (2024), where vivid colors emerge from black reflections, suggesting convergence and longing for liberation. Khorchid participates in the traveling exhibition The Lost Paintings: A Prelude to Return, responding to lost works by Palestinian-Lebanese artist Maroun Tomb, curated by Joëlle Tomb. She chose the title Under the Oak Tree from Tomb's 1947 list, weaving a new piece attached to an older Jacquard work. Born a refugee, Khorchid has never visited Palestine but identifies through culture and memory, having lived in Abu Dhabi and Lebanon, where she feels most at home. She uses textiles for their portability and connection to Palestinian heritage, seeing fabric as a medium for protection and memory. Her practice includes hand weaving as a meditative process, exploring themes of environment, memory, and home. This interview originally appeared in Canvas 120: The Traces Left.