Heritage of Displacement: Oral Histories from the UK Armenian Communities (2023–2026)

The Armenian Institute is proud to announce a new project, funded by a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant, thanks to National Lottery players, to document and preserve stories of Armenian diaspora heritage in the UK.

With this new, large-scale project, the Institute aims to help British-Armenian communities to take part in preserving their heritage of displacement, migration, and resettlement. This oral history project will collect the memories of members of the Armenian diaspora settled in London and Manchester, the two largest Armenian communities in the UK. Family stories and personal relationships with cultural traditions will be recorded and preserved, with a desire to shed light on paths of migration, and how Armenians have recreated ‘home’. The project also aims to document tangible heritage through the digitisation of family photographs and the photogrammetry (3D rendering) of memorabilia and family heirloom objects. This new digital archive of recorded interviews, material heritage, and photographs will be hosted on a new dedicated website that will remain available as a resource for the community and for academic research.

Throughout the process, the Armenian Institute hopes to further promote community engagement through the organisation of workshops, trainings, digital outputs, and finally exhibitions showcasing the archive this project will create.

This project will address the urgent need to document and preserve Armenian diaspora heritage, to keep Armenian heritage accessible and relevant to new generations. It will bring geographically distant UK Armenian communities closer together, allowing for new community perspectives, and for opportunities to engage with shared heritage. It will also highlight the shared experiences of displacement and migration with other global communities. 

Please sign up to our newsletter on the footnotes of our website for further announcements. The Institute is currently seeking volunteers to get involved in:

• being interviewed and sharing your own family history of migration and resettlement.

If you are interested in either opportunity, please reach out to Erica Payet, Interim Programme Manager at the Armenian Institute: erica@armenianinstitute.org.uk