Living with Collective Memories; 

Commemorating Lived Histories 

Where one family’s stories of migration begin, another family’s journey ends. Endings have been inevitable for some lineages of craft practices or livelihoods in the flux of development. Technologies, creators, or their histories, who were visionary in their times, even for that region… The change in times and societal needs have made many regional designs, arts, buildings, or even people, obsolete! It’s true for many recipes, medicines, other ephemeral practices and entire indigenous communities that have been lost to time. Yet, if an item or process no longer serves an immediate purpose, does that mean its usefulness truly ends?  

Agreed, that we can’t retain everything, and it's a very resource-intensive affair to even preserve the relics of the past. Yet, across centuries, communities have found ways to safeguard their memories, by collecting them together, passing them on in different forms, and recreating narratives of their cultural landscapes. This lived way of preservation continues to thrive, often within the rooms of a city, rooms that, regardless of ownership, hold stories waiting to be shared. Here, we bring some of those rooms to life, with the hope of opening a dialogue on collective well-being through cultural preservation and creative collaborations.