Micaela Kaibni Raen's global mission is to advocate for global human rights reform while connecting and empowering activists/creatives resisting colonialism. She is the creator and founder of Queer Tatreez.
Distinctions:
2025 Tin House Summer Workshop
2024 Nomination Pushcart Prize
2024 Nomination Best of the Net
2023 Yalda Award in Poetry
2023 Soaring Gardens Fellowship
- Association of Writers and Publishers
- Radius of Arab American Writers, Inc.
- Lesbian Herstory Archives (New York)
- HALA Collective
- ACT UP! AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power!
Queer Tatreez is visual art and poetry styled in the cadence and structure of the intricate patterns of Indigenous Palestinian Tatreez and dedicated to Queer/Trans Palestinians, living in Palestine, and those living in exile.
Queer and Trans Palestinians have always created, shared, and celebrated Tatreez - despite our cultural erasure. As the culture of Tatreez evolves, it is becoming more diverse and inclusive. Queer Tatreez is a new evolution of both Tatreez and visual poetics as it stitches together Indigenous teachings rooted in colonial resistance and the geographies that gives us life.
Many Southwest Asian/North African (SWANA) and Middle East/North African (MENA) cultures have a culturally specific form of embroidery. So embroidery can become a point of connection that brings together Queer and Trans SWANA communities. Connecting us across heritage, in shared poetic/artistic space, safe to both grieve our losses and celebrate our lives.
Although Queer Tatreez is still evolving, it can act as embroidered mirrors...a space where we can see ourselves and each other, while also reflecting us back to our broader justice movements. Ultimately, empowering us to dream new futures for ourselves and our communities.
Queer and Trans Palestinians have always created, shared, and celebrated Tatreez - despite our cultural erasure. As the culture of Tatreez evolves, it is becoming more diverse and inclusive. Queer Tatreez is a new evolution of both Tatreez and visual poetics as it stitches together Indigenous teachings rooted in colonial resistance and the geographies that gives us life.
Many Southwest Asian/North African (SWANA) and Middle East/North African (MENA) cultures have a culturally specific form of embroidery. So embroidery can become a point of connection that brings together Queer and Trans SWANA communities. Connecting us across heritage, in shared poetic/artistic space, safe to both grieve our losses and celebrate our lives.
Although Queer Tatreez is still evolving, it can act as embroidered mirrors...a space where we can see ourselves and each other, while also reflecting us back to our broader justice movements. Ultimately, empowering us to dream new futures for ourselves and our communities.
Short Biography
Micaela Kaibni Raen is a queer Palestinian American mother, creator, cultural worker, and global human rights activist. She is an award-winning published author and multimedia artist. Her work stitches eco-feminist poetics with Indigenous Palestinian textiles into print and digitized spaces to breakthrough a technomediated world. She grew up in the Little Arabia community in California and graduated from Chapman University.
For over 40 years, she has advocated for Palestinians, Indigenous and displaced peoples, women, Queer/Trans youth in foster care, those affected by HIV/AIDS, and global Queer/Trans communities of color. She has participated in the Radius of Arab American Writers, Inc.; the National Organization for Women; ACT UP!; and Queer Nation. Micaela Kaibni Raen is the creator of Queer Tatreez, a style of visual art and poetics inspired by Indigenous Palestinian embroidery. A Tin House Alum, she has been awarded the Yalda Award for Poetry as well as nominations for The Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.
Her work has been featured in Bint el Nas; Mizna; Qafiyah Review; Yellow Medicine Review; Noor; Rowayat; Koukash Review; The Poetry of Arab Women; El Ghourabaa; Ask the Night for a Dream: Palestinian Writing from the Diaspora; and Heaven Looks Like Us: Palestinian Poetry. With artwork showcased in Resistance at A.R.T./New York and featured by Protea Gallery, her work also appears in publication in The Olive Tree Collection, Chapter House Journal, and Baladi Magazine.
Socials
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/micaelakaibniraen
IG: @micaelakaibniraen
IG: @queertatreez