About the project
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The Ancient History, Contemporary Belonging project was led by Manchester Metropolitan University and was part of a groundbreaking £1.46 million UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Citizen Science Investment into projects where the public are directly involved in the research process. Young people from refugee backgrounds worked with academics from the university and creatives from Sheba Arts to produce new narratives of ancient artefacts held in museum collections.
10 young people aged 16-24 took part in archival research, drawing on their own life experiences to write new biographies of items from their own regions of origin. The aim of this was to increase public understanding of the forced migration of both people and objects. The Ancient History, Contemporary Belonging exhibition opened in April 2023, and is available both in the physical museum on the first floor and in the online archives. There is also a blog documenting the project , containing the young people's work. |
Sheba Arts Project TeamCreative Producer: Fereshteh Mozaffari Sheba Arts Mentors: Dipali Das, Abal Eljanabi, Ekua Bayunu, Clive Hunte, Amang Mardokhy, and Lisa Meech Youth ResearchersRead their bios on the project websiteAhmed Farajallah Dana Almousselli Deniz Ferdos Beit Lafteh Goldis Gorji Irandokht Mariam Zorba مەرام إحسان Senna Youssef Zeen Hayran |
Where to find the exhibition: |
List of objects and creative biographies: |
A map of Manchester Museum's floor guide, showing the Egypt & Sudan, Archaeology (both floor 1) and Collections Reimagined (floor 2) galleries highlighted. Image courtesy of Manchester Museum.
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This list is available on the project website; follow the links in brackets above to see the text in different languages.
We made our own custom map! Take a look by downloading the
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From the museum's walls:
The history of the world is a history of movement.
The migration of people and objects -- both voluntary and forced -- is an important part of our histories. Yet migration is presented too often through colonial narratives in which people and objects from outside the UK are viewed as 'other'.
Ancient History, Contemporary Belonging shows us that we are all connected.
This installation is a creative exploration of the migration of ancient historical objects by young people with migrant heritage. Drawing on archival research and their own lived experiences, they re-create the stories of objects on display.
By exploring interconnected histories and inheritances, these works offer new perspectives about the migration of both contemporary young people and ancient historical objects.
This project is a collaboration between Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester Museum, Sheba Arts, and local young people from Iranian, Iraqi Kurdish, Palestinian, and Syrian backgrounds.
The history of the world is a history of movement.
The migration of people and objects -- both voluntary and forced -- is an important part of our histories. Yet migration is presented too often through colonial narratives in which people and objects from outside the UK are viewed as 'other'.
Ancient History, Contemporary Belonging shows us that we are all connected.
This installation is a creative exploration of the migration of ancient historical objects by young people with migrant heritage. Drawing on archival research and their own lived experiences, they re-create the stories of objects on display.
By exploring interconnected histories and inheritances, these works offer new perspectives about the migration of both contemporary young people and ancient historical objects.
This project is a collaboration between Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester Museum, Sheba Arts, and local young people from Iranian, Iraqi Kurdish, Palestinian, and Syrian backgrounds.
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The research challenged exclusionary narratives about refugees in the UK by producing object biographies that demonstrate the long history of migration and colonialism, which continues to affect people today.
The 20-month project brought together researchers, artists, curators and young people from across Greater Manchester. Young people involved in the research selected objects of interest from Manchester Museum’s collections, and worked with museum archives and artists to research and create a new piece of work. The Museum’s collection includes artefacts from Africa (primarily Egypt and northern Sudan), the eastern Mediterranean (Syria, Palestine), and western Asia (Iran, Iraq), acquired during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a time when British colonial influence in these regions enabled the removal of vast quantities of archaeological material. These regions overlap significantly with the countries of origin of many of the UK’s contemporary forced migrants. Under the mentorship of Sheba Arts’ experienced, migrant-background community artists, the young creatives used different art forms to explore how their own ideas and experiences of forced migration intersect with their archival research. This creative, participatory work went through a series of arts workshops, which included 3D replicas of objects, enabling tactile manipulation of the items. These exciting new projects offered space to researchers and communities to collaborate on a range of issues that affect our societies, from plastic pollution to mental health, supporting people from outside of the research and innovation system to bring their unique experiences and perspectives into the research process, helping them to develop new skills and knowledge which they can use in their own lives. |
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In the exhibition...
An image of a board in the museum displaying the poem 'The Lasting Fate of Zahaak' by Goldis Gorji. The full poem is available on the project website.
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An image of an unprovenanced map created by the ten young people, which shows the movement of both objects and people from homelands to Manchester.
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An image of a board in the museum displayed the poem 'The Journey' by Dana Almousselli. The full poem is available on the project website.
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The Tale of Migrants - Senna Youssef
Stories have been a huge part of my life. I grew up hearing about my grandfather's stories of Palestine and how the disastrous 1948 Nakbeh (the permanent displacement of Palestinian Arabs) impacted his and his family's lives. My grandmother would sing my Syrian village's tribal songs that often told the stories of many of our ancestors, and each had its own occasions and tales to tell.
My parents spoke of what it was like to live a life as a diaspora due to war, occupation, and conflict. And now that I am old enough, I hope to tell a story that encompasses the shared experiences of so many people like myself and my own family. Through my artwork, I show the stories of two lamps, valued but forgotten, wanted but unused. I emphasise that they are more than just simple lamps, presenting them as a metaphor for the shared experiences of migrants and displaced people.
My parents spoke of what it was like to live a life as a diaspora due to war, occupation, and conflict. And now that I am old enough, I hope to tell a story that encompasses the shared experiences of so many people like myself and my own family. Through my artwork, I show the stories of two lamps, valued but forgotten, wanted but unused. I emphasise that they are more than just simple lamps, presenting them as a metaphor for the shared experiences of migrants and displaced people.
