Sudan Living Cultures: Digital Art Showcase

The Sudan Living Cultures: Digital Art Showcase is a collaboration between the Petrie Museum and three independent artists, showcasing the power of transgenerational knowledge through material heritage and artistic practice.

Artists Ahmed Akasha, Dina Nur Satti and Yasmin Elnour have produced three sets of works viewable on digital screens in the Museum. Through the mixed media of digital collage, traditional pottery making and video performance, the works respond directly to Sudanese material on display, prompting a dialogue between essentialised historical objects and living cultural heritage.

Commissioned artworks

Ahmed Akasha
The buildings that our ancestors built
The women who carry this country
The children who dream in colour
Digital collage 
2024

Dina Nur Satti
Milk Offering Vessel
Ceramic pots, offering plate, video performance (0m, 40sec)
2024

Yasmin Elnour
Ancestral Offerings
Digital collage 
2024

About the project

The process of producing these works evolved through communal gatherings in person and online. The artists researched objects on display in the Petrie Museum and comparable material in the British Museum and Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York). They then cross-referenced this research by asking critical questions of the curators and examining other experts on the ancient Nile Valley. Importantly, they drew on familial generational knowledge to understand the power of ritual, spiritualism and local human technologies in Sudanese culture.

The created artworks revive knowledge of ancient traditions and present ideas for the next generation. They seek to inspire hopeful futures based on a deeper multi-layered understanding of the past. For the artists, the project has achieved a greater sense of the purpose and significance of Sudanese material heritage at the Petrie Museum.

Sudan Living Cultures project team

• Sarita Mamseri, UCL Museums Programme Manager
• Dr Eyman Osman, Independent Project Consultant
• Dr Anna Garnett, UCL Petrie Museum Curator
• George Paris, UCL Museums Programme Producer
• Nurelhabib Saaid, Translator
• Hasabseeda Badri, Translator
• Ahmed Akasha, Digital Artist
• Dina Nur Satti, Ceramic Artist
• Yasmin Elnour, Digital Artist

Sudan Living Cultures is funded by UCL Innovation and Enterprise’s Knowledge Exchange programme.

It is part of the Architecting Futures season at UCL Museums, bringing together culture, collections and research towards common hopeful futures.