Uncovering Vietnamese Archives: Library of Ancestral Knowledge

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About the project

The purpose of the Library of Ancestral Knowledge is to explore, gather and create a resource and legacy rooted in care, celebration and connection, starting with our local ESEA community.

The Library of Ancestral Knowledge is co-created with an External Steering Group, who are integral to the decision-making, vision-building and development of the Uncovering Vietnamese Archives: Research Residency since 2022. This group consists of Christine Hanway, Trà My Hickin, Cường Minh Bá Phạm, Jessica Sims and Loan Tran, who have worked closely with our ESEA Community Producer Lara Baclig.

Together, we selected three creative practitioners and artists – Duong Nguyen, Yoni Carnice, and Mai Anh Le – who have helped us explore knowledge around Growing, Healing and Making.

Through their artist residencies, the creative practitioners have also created a series of resources and creative activities to download and explore.

Explore: Growing, Healing and Making

Healing: Scent, Fragment and Memory

In a creative workshop, Duong Thuy Nguyen led participants to explore the intimate relationship between scent, memory, and ancestral presence – especially within diasporic experience. Rooted in the Vietnamese tradition of Trầm Hương – a sacred incense made from agarwood – this gathering invites participants to reflect on how scent can become an archive: of memories, of absence, of return.

Download Duong Nguyen's scent zine Download Duong Nguyen's interactive scent map activity

Growing: Cultivating and Tending Memory

In a hands-on workshop, landscape architect and gardener Yoni Carnice guided participants to explore how gardening can connect us to ancestral knowledge and cultural memory across Vietnamese and ESEA communities. Through mixed-media collage and practical gardening activities, we experienced how nurturing the land helps preserve and honour shared histories and traditions.

Using archival imagery, heritage food crops, and recycled materials, participants shared personal memories of landscapes, gardens, and home. We also learnt practical techniques for growing Southeast Asian herbs and vegetables in London, exploring creative ways to adapt traditional growing practices to new environments.

Download Yoni Carnice's ESEA Crop Guide Download Yoni Carnice's growing guide activity

Making: Preserving Memories with Handicrafts

Mai Anh Le invited workshop participants to look at the way the spirit of DIY exists and influences our homes and spaces. What tools do we use that turn new and foreign places into a home? Do these items hold memory as well as purpose? Participants were invited to bring any tools, materials or utensils they rely on for DIY. The memories behind these objects were shared and preserved by imprinting their textures and surfaces onto clay, creating a collective map of tactile textures.

Download Mai Anh Le's handicraft activity