Athar - Shubbak
A living digital archive for Shubbak Festival, preserving Arab and SWANA cultural memory in London. Two phases: a community submission tool for anonymous voices, and an immersive, audio-first archive with oral histories, textile memory maps, and an interactive map of stories across the city.
Shubbak is London's biennial festival of contemporary Arab culture and arts. They commissioned Athar as part of their Voices of Resilience programme, documenting heritage and oral histories across Brent and Westminster.
Services
Many voices. Living memory. One digital home.
Shubbak Festival needed a platform for Athar, a cultural memory project documenting Arab and SWANA heritage in London. It had to collect anonymous community submissions, house oral history recordings, display textile memory maps, and plot stories across a map of the city. Audio-first, bilingual, trauma-informed, and built to last.
0
Weeks from Brief to Launch
0
Phases Delivered
0%
Client Managed
AR/EN
Fully Bilingual
Sound is the centrepiece, not an afterthought.
The oral histories are the heart of Athar. We designed a custom audio experience that makes listening feel deliberate and contemplative. Story cards styled like vintage walkmans invite visitors to press play. Every detail encourages people to slow down and listen.
A submission form designed around trust.
The Live Diary lets anyone leave a trace, anonymously. Text fragments, voice recordings captured in the browser, photographs of objects and places. Optional pseudonyms, no accounts, gentle consent language. Many visitors arrive by scanning QR codes on posters across Brent and Westminster.
Stories mapped across the city.
An interactive map plots oral histories across London with polaroid-style markers. Click a pin, hear a voice, read a story. The map turns abstract heritage into something you can navigate and explore.
Bilingual from day one.
Full Arabic and English support throughout. Both languages sit at equal prominence, not a translated afterthought but a genuinely bilingual experience from navigation to submission forms to story transcripts.
Complete independence from handover.
The team manages everything themselves. Oral histories, community submissions, bilingual content, site settings. They can switch the site between collection mode and full archive mode with a single toggle. No developer in the loop.
Designed to respect its subject.
Every design decision was guided by the project principles: anti-monumental, community-centred, trauma-informed. The visual language uses warm, archival tones and contemplative pacing. It feels like stepping into a gallery, not scrolling a website.
Built to outlast the exhibition.
Athar is not a campaign site. The outputs will join Brent Museum permanent collection. The platform was designed for longevity, fully manageable by the client team, with content that will remain accessible for years to come.
