We are delighted to announce the twenty-four selected Phase II commissioned projects that have joined Imagining Futures.
Through the Project Commissions Open Call, we invited applications for initiatives which tackle the challenges of multivocality, dispersed, dissenting and dominant narratives, especially in contexts of rupture, post-conflict, reconstruction and displacement. At the Imagining Futures Network, we understand archives in the broadest possible sense – incorporating traditional documentary collections, oral histories, material remains that may be whole landscapes or cities, and diverse practices from daily rituals to collective celebrations.
In joining the Imagining Futures team, together we seek to capture and articulate modes of archival practice that allow for co-existence and recognition of multiple experiences of the past, that expose dialogues across generations, gender, class and stakeholders, while challenging a singular ‘we’. These will also inform a Manifesto of egalitarian archival practices – a kind of Words into Action Guide – that addresses gaps and oversights in policies and practices on local, national and supranational levels.
Our aspiration, in recognising the power of archives, is to make them sites of engagement through: exploratory Labs, commissioned research and arts projects, creation of new archives, preservation of archives under threat, reading existing archives against the grain, and rethinking sites of memory. Through these activities, we seek to advocate for culture to be recognised as a human need.
The following projects will soon have their own project pages, so watch this space for more information:
Compact Grants
We Come From the Past: Orality, Indigeneity and the Flow of Culture (University of Canberra) Paul Magee (PI); Paul Collis (Co-I); Jen Crawford (Co-I)
Ghana’s Analogue Video Film Digitization, Archiving and Repository Project (National Film and Television Institute, Accra) Rebecca Ohene-Asah (PI); George Bosompim (Co-I)
Prisoners of Love: Affect, containment and alternative futures. Connecting UK museum collection items with home and diasporic communities through virtual visits and art practices (Central Saint Martins), Louisa Minkin (PI); Lennon Mhishi (Co-I); Johanna Zetterstrom-Sharp (Co-I); Ian Dawson (Co-I)
Producing a manageable historical archive for Andean communities (University of Cambridge), Gabriela Ramos (PI)
Archiving 30,000 years of eruptive History in Arequipa (University of Cambridge) Julie Morin (PI); Amy Donovan (Co-I); Nelida Manrique (Co-I); Yrma Linares (Co-I)
Connecting Archives Connecting People (British Institute at Ankara) Nurdan Atalan Cayirezmez (PI); Charlotte Roueche (Co-I)
Animating cycles for living and archiving the foodways of a Maya community in Yucatan Olin Moctezuma Burns (PI); Daniela Marian Mussali Meza (Co-I); Cristian Miguel Torres Gutiérrez (Co-I)
Archiving Resistance: Artefacts of Transnational Occupation (University College London) Raktim Ray (PI); Mukul Patel (Co-I); Srilata Sircar (Co-I); Manu Luksch (Co-I); Ufaque Paiker (Co-I)
History Closer to the Ngoni People (Songea Friendship Organization & University of Dodoma) Xavier Komba (PI); Ginald Pius Mihajlo (Co-I); Rose Mbijima (Co-I)
Archiving performances, dances and oral traditions of Luo community (National Museums of Kenya) George Oden (PI); Timonson Jairus A giver Bwana (Co-I)
Nursing Nostalgia: Archival traces and the social lives of Zimbabweans in Britain (University of Hull), Roselyne Masamha (PI); Takudzwa Pasipanodya (Co-I); Njabulo Chipangura (Co-I); Lennon Mhishi (Co-I)
The Closed Ndanda Benedictine Missionary Archive—Opening, Revitalizing and Giving Access to the Community (Ndanda Abbey) Simon Tuzinde (PI), Rev Tuzinde Simon Mgassa (Co-I); Siegfried Mchekenje (Co-I)
Living Biocultural Archives: “Collective Archivism”, Daniela Sclavo (PI); Mariana Martínez Balvanera (Co-I); Adriana Cadena Roa (Co-I); Elizabeth Guerrero Molina (Co-I); Emilio Hernández Martínez (Co-I); Patricia Balvanera (Co-I)
Digitalisation of Herbarium (College of African Wildlife Management) Rudolf Mremi (PI); John Elia Ntandu (Co-I)
Archiving COVID-19 heritage in Ho Chi Minh City, Rachel Tough (PI); Diana Lê (Co-I); Nguyễn Tăng Quang (Co-I)
Creative Archiving of Socio-ecological and Socio-cultural knowledge & practices of Lateritic Landscapes of Central Konkan (Malabar Nature Conservation Club), Saili Kaustubh Palande-Datar (PI); Neha Rane (Co-I)
The “I” in HerStory: The Narratives of Iraqi Women Protests Seeking Change, Enas Ridha (PI); Wafaa Al-Amaari (Co-I); Carol Isaacs (Co-I); Zinah Jassam Mohammed (Co-I)
Comprehensive Grants
Legacy of Permanent Temporariness, Gerawork Teferra (PI); Mohamed Abdullahi (Co-I)
Reviving the Nubian Language, JC Niala (PI); Zena Musa (Co-I); Zahra Khalid (Co-); Ramlat Tamim (CoI)
Archivo Vivo [Living archive]: weaving gendered (hi)stories of urban reclamation in Moravia (University College London) Catalina Ortiz (PI); Natalia Villamizar Duarte (Co-I); Ana Maria Restrepo Aguilar (Co-I); Luz Mila Hernandez (Co-I)
The Untold Stories: The Oral History, Memory, and Displacement Archive in Post-ISIS conflicts Areas in Iraq (University of Kufa) Kareem Ali Dhiaa (PI); Sarah Zaimi (Co-I)
Este Lugar Tiene Muchas Historias/ Lajtre Yuduxh Rextiixni, Hilary Morgan Ventura Leathem (PI), Pedro Guillermo Ramón Celis (Co-I); Marco Antonio Méndez Juárez (Co-I)
Seeing Berlin Anew (Syrbanism) Edwar Hanna (PI), Nour Harastani (Co-I); Jackie Davies (Co-I)
Restoring Territory and Memory: Displays of visual archives in Michoacán (Collegio de Michoacan) Gabriela Zamorano (PI), Sandra Rozental (Co-I)