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Documenting Cultural Heritage
In six years, MEAP has funded 54 Planning Grant, providing communities and scholars with funding and much needed time to survey, assess, evaluate, categorize, organize, and catalogue endangered archival collections. Planning Grants result in collection survey reports, itemized inventories, or other kinds of documentation that prepare collections for increased access, preservation and potential digitization. The process often reveals unique materials that have not previously been documented and invites renewed attention to vital collection materials. MEAP Planning Grants also often build community through the process of documentation, inviting community stakeholders and knowledge holders to participate in the process of describing and defining collections. Opportunities for training and community engagement add to the value of Planning Grants, expanding and reimagining the work of cultural heritage preservation to include community voices.
Cataloguing Zoological Collections
The process of documentation for Planning Grant teams often involves connecting community knowledge to a collection, ensuring that archival and cultural materials are handled with care, catalogued in a way that enables findability, and organized for long term use. For example, the project team at the Mweka Museum in Tanzania(opens in a new tab) has shared insight into their process, including training existing and new staff, assessing and evaluating the collection to identify damage, and cataloguing. What makes this project so unique is the nature of the collection - the zoological collection of birds and small animals - many of which are used for research and some for display. The collection, like all others, requires updated documentation and the process revealed some interesting findings: specimen of endangered vultures. Learn more(opens in a new tab)
Global Community Engagement
Five recently completed MEAP Planning Grants reflect these moments of discovery as well as community building and knowledge sharing. These projects document a broad range of collections from an artists papers in Egypt to political records in Cabo Verde, Palestinian refugee oral histories in Lebanon, photographs and papers from the Museo Marino that capture daily life of fishermen from the Guaiqueri community in Venezuela, and audio recordings of the Igbo community in Nigeria. Each project team worked with knowledge holders to describe the collection and created opportunity for community members to engage directly with the materials.
Image: "Three Tired Tigers" at Jameel Arts Centre, 2024. Photography by Daniella Baptista. Courtesy of Art Jameel (22). Exhibit of Mohieddine Ellabbad's work.