Art & Culture

This British Museum is Asking SWANA Communities to Correct Its Records

BYYassine Hariss

August 25, 2026

Museums are very good at telling us where something came from, when it was made, and what it supposedly meant. The problem is that, historically, the people doing the explaining weren’t always the people who actually knew. Now, Hekayyatna and London’s Horniman Museum and Gardens are inviting SWANA communities to have their say.

Founded in 1901, the Horniman Museum has, over the decades, amassed a sizable collection of belongings from across the SWANA region, ranging from books and garments to maps, manuscripts, amulets, games, and various other objects. The trouble, as is so often the case with collections assembled and catalogued in another era, lies in who got to describe them in the first place.

Many of the accompanying records were written decades ago and, unsurprisingly, don’t always tell the whole story. Some are incomplete, others are inaccurate, while plenty describe the objects through a distinctly Western lens, with little, if any, input from the communities that made, used, or lived alongside them.

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That is precisely why the museum has decided to team up with regional community organization Hekayyatna, inviting SWANA communities to revisit some of those records and, where necessary, correct the story they tell. Rather than simply amending its catalogue behind closed doors, the duo is opening the process up to the very people whose histories, cultures, and belongings have spent decades sitting behind the glass.

“As someone who is obsessed with museums and exhibitions, it’s been so incredible to see a prominent UK institution like the Horniman Museum open its doors to genuine community engagement and take a transparent look at the history of its collections,” Hekayyatna co-founder Al-Hassan Al-Shaibani Al Shaibani said in a shared press release.

“Creating a space for the SWANA community to contribute to how we are represented within a museum and to respond to outdated and problematic records is refreshing and important. I hope this can serve as an example to other institutions to meaningfully communicate with communities whose histories and cultures they hold,” he added.

Supported by University College London and developed as part of the Liberating SWANA in UK Museums project, the initiative essentially presents a selection of items from the Horniman museum’s collection and invites members of the SWANA community to examine the belongings, and the photographs and labels attached to them before submitting a response of their own.

Participants can rewrite an existing description, submit a poem, share a story or memory prompted by a particular belonging, or respond in another format entirely.

The open call has been live for just over a week and will remain open until Sept. 15. You can access it and submit your response here.

This British Museum is Asking SWANA Communities to Correct Its Records

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This British Museum is Asking SWANA Communities to Correct Its Records

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