Hekayyatna Wants You to Correct a London Museum's SWANA History

The Horniman Museum and Gardens displays books, thobes, swords and manuscripts among other artifacts from South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA) with incomplete or inaccurate descriptions, written without input from the communities the belongings come from. Hekayyatna, a SWANA organisation in London, is asking these communities to correct their history by rewriting, questioning, or refusing the existing catalogue descriptions attached to them.

In response, you can submit text, images, audio, videos, drawings, scans or photographs through Hekayyatna’s website until September 15th, 2026. The strongest responses will be reworked to sit beside the belongings they answer to in a major new exhibition, opening at the Horniman Museum and Gardens in Forest Hill on December 3rd, 2026, and running for a year. Some will go further, entered directly into the Horniman's own records.

“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 said. "Creating a space for the SWANA community to contribute to how we are represented within a museum and to respond to outdated and problematic records is refreshing and important.”

The project brings together Hekayyatna, Horniman curator Heba Abd El Gawad, and University College London (UCL), built out as part of the Liberating SWANA in UK Museums initiative. It has taken shape through three community workshops, a set of artist commissions, and the open call, which hands the same invitation to anyone who can't be there in person.