The Victoria and Albert Museum's online collection catalogue records Safe Space, a set of six embroidered works by Aya Haidar acquired through the Jameel Acquisition Fund in 2024 and now held in the museum's permanent collection. The page functions as the object record for the group, setting out materials, dimensions and display history rather than reporting news, and gives the museum number as ME.15:1 to 6-2024.
The six pieces are individually titled Shattered, Sniper, Stray Bullets, Bedtime, Fire Bomb and Door Frame, each a 30cm embroidery hoop worked on vintage Lebanese textile with cotton thread and glass beads standing in for shattered window panes. Together they record the artist's mother's memories of surviving Lebanon's civil war of 1975 to 1990, including the domestic improvisation of using cooking pots and pan lids as makeshift shields, and draw on tatreez, the traditional technique of Palestinian embroidery. The V&A has been showing the series in its Tatreez: Palestinian Embroidery exhibition in the Jameel Gallery, running from 17 May 2025 to 31 May 2026.
The acquisition is a significant institutional endorsement of Aya Haidar's embroidery practice, which extends her long-running use of tatreez and domestic testimony seen in works such as Highly Strung. She continues to be represented by Tabari Artspace in Dubai.
