The dress of impossible
By Nick Bilbrough
It all started when Roaa Al Masri wrote the poem ‘Distorted by my sadness’ as a submission for the 2023 Hands up Project poetry competition.
Alice Oswald was particularly moved by this poem when she was judging the competition, and she referenced it in her introduction to ‘Moon tell me truth’ ….
‘Wipe out that sadness and weave the dress of impossible from the tears.’
(Roaa Al-Masri, 13)
Those lines by a 13-year-old have stayed in my head since I read them and now I will always think of poetry as the dress of impossibility. How wonderful to make clothes out of tears and alter the world by wearing it. Even more wonderful to know that this poem, like the others in this book, was written by a student under fifteen, for whom English was a second language.
Alice Oswald, June 2023
‘Distorted by my sadness’ by Roaa Al Masri, 13 years old, Gaza, Palestine.
Then, in November 2023, the book became an exhibition. It started life at the Palestine museum in Bristol, and then moved to a gallery in Hastings. There, artist Louisa Michel was also inspired by Roaa’s poem, and decided to create a ‘dress of impossible’ to include in the exhibition next to the poem. The idea was that visitors would sew their own tears onto the dress, sometimes with a message, creating a physical representation of Roaa’s powerful words.
Since then the dress has accompanied the exhbition all over the UK and Ireland.
The first iteration of ‘the dress of impossible’ at a gallery in Hastings, Uk
And there are also now many other iterations of the dress. Below you can see a traditional hand sewn Palestinian thobe, with tears added from all of the places along the route of the 2026 Pilgrimage for Palestine. The dress travelled with Peter Oswald, myself and many others along the route from Cáñar, a tiny village in the Alpujjara mountains in Spain, all the way to London. We were fasting for Ramadan while walking, and everywhere we stopped for iftar and poetry events, people added tears to the dress. It now takes pride of place in the Hands up Project’s space in Totnes.
The dress of impossible in Totnes, UK
I’ve just returned from a three month Hands up tour of Mexico and Central America, presenting our documentary film ‘From Gaza we speak’, organising link ups with schools, and sharing the poetry of Palestinian children with people there. We now have dresses in El Salvador, Guatamala, Chiapas in Southern Mexico and Mexico city, and these will now travel around the different regions, thanks to our new coordinators in each of the places.
The El Salvadorian dress started life at the Theatre of Cojutepeque.
Tears added by El Salvadorian children in Cojutepeque.
Children adding tears to the dress in San Francisco Echeverria, Cabañas. This was the site of one of the worst massacres by the government of El Salvador against the people.
The Guatemalan dress, a traditional ‘Huipil’ strarted life at Colegio Sochil, near Antigua, Guatemala.
After adding tears, children at Colegio Sochil, proudly sharing their work in the school garden.
The Guatemalan dress is currently at the Palestinian Consulate in Guatemala city
The Chiapas dress started life at Chantiik, an organisation supporting the educational needs of children who work on the streets of San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico.
We also have a dress with tears added by young people in Mexico city.