Tales of African Riddles to explore heritage of Manchester’s Congolese and African diaspora community

A major new project led by North-West-based African Arts and Heritage Organisation, Amani Creatives, will explore and gather naming traditions and heritage from the Congolese and African diaspora community in and around Manchester.

Culminating in an exhibition and new archive over the next 18 months, Tales of African Riddles seeks to uncover and record naming stories, create physical and digital portraits that explain this heritage and archive the information for future generations.

The project aims to engage people around Manchester from the African diaspora, connect with our international partner DRC Museum to support in translations and explain the heritage, and add to the Manchester Archives and RACE Archives to extend their representation of ethnically diverse heritage that makes up the population around Manchester.

Amani Creatives has laid out a plan for the project, with steps including:

• Recruit volunteers to interview people in the community and collect their sayings and narratives
• Train volunteers in oral history recording, supported by Ahmed Iqbal Centre’s oral history experts
• Create documentation of the project including photographs, portraits, videos and audio recordings
• Share the heritage through a mixed digital and physical photo exhibition at Manchester Central Library, a printed and animated booklet, with a celebratory launch event. The exhibition is scheduled for October 2025
• Archive the documentation with Ahmed Iqbal Ullah RACE Centre archives at Manchester Central Library
• Involve local African diaspora groups around Manchester
• Involve the community of African artists in our region already connected to Amani Creatives
• Involve individual African residents in our region already connected to Amani Creatives

You can read more about the project here.