The Travel Edition
Edition 01 · October 2026
The Living Archives Project
An editorial publication exploring the people, places, stories and experiences through which culture continues to live.
The Living Archives Project
Culture is more than something we inherit.
It is something we experience.
The Living Archives Project is an ongoing cultural initiative founded by artist Buki Mariam as an extension of her art practice. Through storytelling, community programmes and cultural participation, the project explores how culture is experienced, shared and carried forward.
Why Living Archives
What does it mean for an archive to be alive?
The Living Archives Project began with a simple question: How do we keep the things that matter to us alive?
Culture does not exist only in museums, records or historical objects. It lives in language, memory, family stories, rituals, places, gestures and the ways knowledge moves between people.
The project approaches the archive as something active rather than fixed. Through storytelling, gatherings and shared experiences, the project creates opportunities to engage with what we inherit, consider what it means today and contribute to what is carried forward.
Explore the Publication
Stories in Living Languages
A community storytelling programme celebrating living languages through shared reading, conversation and intergenerational exchange.
Brooklyn Children’s Museum, 2026
Memory Mapping
A participatory methodology exploring the relationship between memory, place and cultural inheritance through mapping, reflection and shared storytelling.
Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art, 2025
Culture is carried by people.
Across its different forms, The Living Archives Project is interested in participation: not simply preserving culture for people to observe, but creating opportunities for people to recognize themselves within it, contribute to it and carry it forward.
A living archive is therefore never complete. It grows through the people who enter it.
The Living Archive in Practice
Stories in Living Languages · Brooklyn Children’s Museum, 2026 
Memory Mapping · Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art, 2025 
Stories in Living Languages · Brooklyn Children’s Museum, 2026 
Ephemeral Realities, 2023. A community gathering exploring art, memory and shared cultural experience.
The Living Archives Project grows through people, shared knowledge and cultural exchange. There are many ways to become part of the work.
Participate
Join community programmes, workshops and cultural experiences exploring memory, identity and cultural inheritance.
Collaborate
Partner with us on cultural programmes, community engagement, and the digitisation and digital storytelling of existing archives.
We welcome artists, cultural practitioners, communities and institutions interested in making cultural knowledge more accessible and engaging.
Contribute
Share stories, cultural knowledge, documentation, skills or resources that can enrich The Living Archives Project.
Send an enquiry
Stay Connected
Follow upcoming programmes, collaborations and opportunities to participate in The Living Archives Project.