"The aim of the project is to humanize the Palestinian story, not only through pain, but through hospitality, a shared table, and the simple act of eating together. Politics are easier to ignore than humanity," says the artist, Yara Abu Aataya.

The Ritual of Return is a project about returning to the landscapes her family was displaced from. Designer Yara Abu Aataya, born in Gaza and based in Prague, models the desert of the Naqab and the city of Bir al-Sab’ from sand, imprints them into glass, and returns to them in the only way she can: through food and hospitality. Bread dipped in olive oil and za’atar, passed from hand to hand, becomes a return to a place she has never seen.




After being nominated for Discovery of the Year at Czech Grand Design for her project ~1 hour collection, Abu Aataya paused her creative practice for a time and turned to activism, in response to the genocide in Gaza, which took the lives and homes of a significant part of her family, including her grandmother. After three years, she decided to return to the subject in the language that feels most natural to her: the language of creation.

The artist draws on her Czech-Palestinian identity and on family memory tied to the Palestinian-Bedouin roots of her father, whose family was displaced from the Naqab (today's Negev), specifically from the city of Bir al-Sab' (today's Beersheba). The Ritual of Return joins Palestinian and Czech glassmaking traditions in a single gesture: a desert landscape imprinted into glass made in the Czech Republic.

The project builds on the motif of the shared table as a gesture of hospitality, a central principle of Palestinian culture. The glass plates are created as imprints of modeled landscapes. The embroidered cotton scarves and coasters carry tatreez motifs referencing regional Palestinian embroidery traditions. First used at the table, then worn, tied around the neck, the wrist, carried on, the textiles trace the shift of a single object from ritual use into everyday memory: what once held food now holds the body.

The hourglasses, vases, and glass neon fixtures come from the artist's earlier work, continuing ~1 hour collection. The sand inside the hourglasses refers to the desert of the Naqab and the Bedouin roots of the artist's father. The return the installation speaks of is a return to herself, to Palestine, to a landscape the artist herself has never known.

Instagram: @yaraaa.studio, @yaraabuaataya