For those in the diaspora , the colonial archive can often be one of the few existing references to histories that have been violently distorted and fragmented. War and displacement further disrupt these relationships to memory and place, destroying archives, separating communities, and making material histories inaccessible. In their absence, histories are carried through the personal and informal archives we hold with us: photographs, objects, stories, sounds, recipes, memories, and the spaces where they are shared.

This workshop explores the informal archive as a living form of knowledge that exists beyond institutions, holding personal and collective histories, and that might otherwise disappear. Moving between institutional, personal, and living archives, we will consider what is preserved, what is lost, and what histories are given value.

Together, we will explore how diasporic and personal archives can do more than preserve forgotten pasts, and how can become a palette of references for imagining alternative spatial futures.

This workshop is part of the series Under Construction: Reopening. Having just undergone a period of renovation, the building is again open for audiences to come back in. This series of monthly workshops curated by artist and PhD researcher Alisa Oleva invites artists and writers from diasporic backgrounds to think about the theme 'under construction'. What happens when we move homes and we use new languages? What remains unspeakable, what emerges in the gaps of translation? How are new identities constructed, and how can poetry express what otherwise remains unspeakable? What is hiding in the cracks and what is haunting our ideas of home? How do you reopen doors and invite others back in? These workshops use writing, listening, planting, moving, sharing stories and zine-making as tools to learn, share and come together.

Space Black is a London based interdisciplinary built-environment studio by Rayan Elnayal – Architectural Designer, Visual Artist & Educator, and Heba Tabidi – Civil Engineer & Sound Practitioner. 

The studio explores underrepresented and under-resourced ideas in the built environment through Concept Design & Research, Education and Culture. The pair look to build an alternative model of practice that encourages interdisciplinary collaboration in order to imagine alternate spatial futures for marginalised communities, rooted in justice and joy.

5a Bloomsbury Square London WC1A 2TA