Hands On: Leighton House and The Arab British Centre
Kheit, meaning “thread” in Arabic, was a collaborative exhibition and community project led by textile artist Nour Hage at Leighton House, supported by The Barakat Trust. The project responded to the museum’s historic Arab Hall and its collection of Middle Eastern textiles, while exploring contemporary themes of memory, identity, and women’s creative practices.
Hage created three major textile installations inspired by the historic interiors and collections of Leighton House. Using materials dyed with natural pigments from her hometown in Lebanon and crafted using traditional techniques, her works reflected on themes such as the protective power of braids in West Asian culture and the transmission of knowledge through textiles. One of the key works, Our Garden, was co-produced with eight local women through a series of workshops. Participants stitched personal symbols into a collective embroidered panel, drawing on Palestinian traditions of communal textile-making.
The exhibition was accompanied by an ambitious public programme, including workshops on Palestinian embroidery led by Aya Haidar and the Tatreez Collective, talks exploring Arab-British connections, and the popular Stitching Circle, which empowered community participants to lead sewing sessions for the public. The programme successfully engaged local audiences, particularly women from refugee, migrant, and minority backgrounds, many of whom had never previously visited Leighton House.
Kheit made Islamic and Arab textile traditions accessible and meaningful to new audiences while contributing to Leighton House’s long-term commitment to telling more inclusive stories about its collection and history. The project attracted thousands of visitors and generated significant interest both onsite and online, including a short film and contributions to the Arab British Centre’s Arab Britain programme.
