From studio, archive, and field, we build a bridge from heritage to just futures. Across craft, performance, language & literature, and archaeology & architecture. Co-designed with communities, we turn knowledge into livelihoods and open resources—grounded in consent, provenance, and fair work—to keep culture alive, contemporary, and shared.

Close-up of a person’s hand weaving or repairing a traditional loom with numerous threads stretched across it in a workshop setting.

Craft      

EMKP · White Gold · Kaitag

Honouring skill, mobilising futures.

Our craft work turns endangered knowledge into dignified livelihoods. From EMKP-supported documentation of Shu (wool) to the White Gold shepherd-cloak series and the Kaitag needlework line, we build a traceable bridge from pasture to piece—women-led, climate-wise, language-forward.

An open old book with Arabic or Persian script on yellowed pages, resting on a dark patterned fabric.

Literature

Preservation of Manuscripts & Correspondence

We safeguard and share manuscripts from the Hindukush through careful digitisation, transliteration (Khowar/Urdu/Persian/English), and community review. The aim is not display, but return—texts living again in readings, classrooms, and studios.

Featured collections (selected):

  • Zafarnāma, c. 1868

  • Dīvān-e Sīyār, c. 1810

  • Kulliyāt-e Mu‘āzam Khan, 1902

  • Kulliyāt-e Mehvī (Tajamul Shah Mehvī), c. 1820

  • Tārīkh-e Chitral (Persian), c. 1893

  • Tauzeeh Mulāyā, c. 1903

  • Kashf-ul-Hijāb, c. 1918

  • Sharh-e ‘Amalī, c. 1901

An elderly man with a beard and grey hair, wearing a hat, sitting cross-legged outdoors, playing a traditional stringed instrument.

Music

Bazm-e Sitar

Listening as culture, performance as care.

An intimate performance lab and mehfil series where sitar, voice, and field sound meet place. We run short labs that end in small showings, make studio/site recordings (including low-bandwidth notes), and mentor youth in instrument care. Outputs include listening sessions, performance films, and a bilingual, consent-led audio archive—sound that travels without extraction.

Close-up of an ornately carved and painted wooden architectural element with floral and geometric patterns, faded red and gold colors, and decorative trim.

Archaeology

&

Architecture

Documentation of Gumbad-e Raisan (“Domes of Silence”)

A baseline for protection, a covenant of respect.

We are building the first consent-led dossier for Gumbad-e Raisan—photogrammetry, measured drawings, material surveys, oral histories, and climate-risk notes—so communities and institutions have what they need to protect these domed structures without spectacle or harm.