Imagine Peace: Archives of her in diaspora

The event Imagine Peace: Archives of her in diaspora is a women-focused program organized in collaboration with the Yemeni Women Archive. This gathering highlights the courage and strength of women’s voices emerging from the diaspora, migration, and emotional and geographical displacement in times of conflict. These voices bring color to the grey spaces in subtle ways, forming walls and pages of the city—across many countries, but especially in Yemen. 

Globally, we focus on women who translate their experiences into words and images on paper, revealing the power of women’s stories. Despite oppression, forced migration, intimidation, and silence, a collective creative space has emerged—a space of resistance, hope, and self-expression.
The event invites writers, poets, and thinkers from home and abroad to share how creative writing—from poetry to prose—has become a channel for expressing the unspeakable.
 

We will also present archival materials from the World Museum and from women locally and globally, including Yemen. The program explores how women shape stories amid displacement and struggle, and how poetry and storytelling can both break and build walls, with special attention to the work of Saba Hamzah.

This raises the question: what does it mean to archive this collective memory? How do we engage with and build upon old and new archival material? And can archiving also be a form of homemaking? By presenting a living archive, we engage with the past, present, and future.

The date is deliberately set around October 14, the day Yemen celebrated its independence from British colonial rule. This historic milestone reflects the broader theme of the event: independence, self-determination, and finding one’s own voice in turbulent times.