(Re)Collecting Sudan: Art and Culture Archives Workshop II
On September 21, 2025, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) hosted its second workshop for the “(Re)Collecting Sudan: Art and Culture Archives” research initiative. This workshop served as a platform for project contributors to engage in detailed discussions and receive constructive feedback on their submitted papers.
To ensure a thorough review process and provide robust feedback for all submissions, the workshop was organized into five thematically focused sessions. These sessions included Historical Archives, Digital Archives, Art Archives, Lyrical Archives, and Archives of Exile. This strategic segmentation allowed for in-depth engagement with each paper, ensuring that discussions were contextualized within their specific scholarly domains and fostering specialized insights.
The “Historical Archives” section initiated the discussions, featuring two prominent papers. Eiman Hussein, Talal Afifi, and Erica Carter’s paper “Experiencing Hussein Shariffe: Encounters with the Archives—A Collective Auto-Ethnography,” offered a unique, shared exploration of historical interactions. This was followed by Ahmad Sikainga’s “The Archives of Leisure and Popular Culture in Colonial and Post-Colonial Khartoum,” which meticulously examined the cultural nuances preserved within these historical records.
Transitioning to contemporary approaches, the “Digital Archives” session showcased three insightful papers. Amna Elidrissy, Zainab Gaafar, and Helen Mallinson co-authored “Live Museums: An Ecosystem for Safeguarding Heritage,” highlighting innovative digital platforms for cultural preservation. Larissa-Diana Fuhrmann and Aya Hassan then explored modern archiving in “Instagram as Archive: Sudanese Artists and Political Memory,” demonstrating the role of social media in capturing historical narratives. The session concluded with Marilyn Deegan, Wahbi Abdalfattah Abdalrahman, and Locale’s “Sudan Memory: Building and Narrating the Digital Archive,” detailing efforts in constructing comprehensive digital repositories.
Further expanding the scope, the “Art Archives” session addressed the intersection of art and historical documentation through two compelling papers. Reem Aljeally and Katarzyna Grabska’s “Accidental Archiving? Questioning Curation and Research as Forms of Archiving in the Midst of Political Violence and War in Sudan” critically examined spontaneous archiving practices during conflict. Rahiem Shadad then presented “What Can We Learn from Sudan’s Collective Image-Making History?” emphasizing the value of visual cultural heritage.
The “Lyrical Archives” session highlighted the power of oral and poetic traditions, featuring Qutouf Elobaid’s “Songs of the Barracks: Sudanese Poetic Archives of the 2018 December Revolution,” and Ruba El Melik and Reem Abbas’s “Women Archiving Sudan: How Women Use Fashion, Songs, and Poetry to Preserve History,” both illustrating the profound role of lyrical expression in documenting historical events.
The workshop concluded with the “Archives of Exile” session, which explored the preservation of cultural memory in diaspora. Bentley Brown’s paper, “Despite the Distance Between Us: Attempts to Preserve Cultural Memory through Filmmaking-in-Exile,” showcased cinematic endeavors to bridge geographical divides. Finally, Anna Reumert’s “An Archive of Exile: Sudanese Migrant Labor and Political Solidarity in Lebanon” shed light on the archival significance of migrant experiences and collective action.
The final revised drafts will be collected by CIRS with an aim of publishing either an edited volume or a special issue of a journal in the future.
- To view the working group agenda, click here
- Read more about this research initiative
Participants and Discussants:
- Wahbi Abdulrahman, Nile Valley University, Sudan
- Rund Alarabi, The Städelschule (Hochschule für Bildende Künste), Germany
- Muez Ali, Earthna: Center for a Sustainable Future at Qatar Foundation
- Reem Aljeally, The Muse Multi Studios
- Zahra Babar, CIRS, Georgetown University in Qatar
- Misba Bhatti, CIRS, Georgetown University in Qatar
- Bentley Brown, American University of Sharjah
- Erica Carter, King’s College
- Marilyn Deegan, King’s College
- Amna Elidrissy, Safeguarding Sudan’s Living Heristage (SSLH)
- Ruba El Melik, Independent Researcher
- Qutouf Elobaid, Locale
- Nafisa Eltahir, Locale
- Larissa-Diana Fuhrmann, Peace Research Institute Frankfurt
- Katarzyna Grabska, University of Geneva
- Suha Hasan, Mawane
- Aya Hassan, Georgetown University in Qatar
- Noor Hussain, CIRS, Georgetown University in Qatar
- Eiman Hussein, King’s College
- Ala Kheir, Independent Researcher
- Helen Mallinson, Safeguarding Sudan’s Living Heristage (SSLH)
- Suzi Mirgani, CIRS, Georgetown University in Qatar
- Anna Simone Ruemert, The New School, US
- Rahiem Shadad, Downtown Gallery
- Aala Sharfi, Locale
- Omnia Shawkat, Andariya
- Haneen Sidhahmed, Sudan Tapes Archive
- Ahmad Sikainga, Ohio State University
- Sabreen Taha, CIRS, Georgetown University in Qatar
Article by CIRS Research Analyst Misba Bhatti