> [!NOTE]+ Meta > Author:: David Palazón > Reference:: https://www.davidpalazon.art/rohingya-cultural-memory-centre > Date:: 2020 > Tags:: #warp/report #Bangladesh > WeftLinks:: [[Migrant and refugee value of craft]] > Claim:: [[Claim - Craft provides a way of sustaining cultural attachments to home]] > [!SUMMARY] Summary > David Palazón documents the Rohingya Cultural Memory Centre (RCMC), an IOM initiative in Cox's Bazar that engaged over 100 Rohingya artisans to map, document and exhibit the community's tangible and intangible heritage — the first comprehensive attempt to preserve Rohingya cultural identity. ### Highlights > The Rohingya Cultural Memory Centre (RCMC) — or Rohingya Kimoti Rosomor Ghor (House of Rohingya Cultural Treasures) — was an initiative of IOM, the UN Migration agency. The goal was to create a conservation-innovation platform providing the Rohingya community with the space and tools so they would be known for their heritage, art and creativity, and not just their marginalisation. It was the first-ever attempt to comprehensively document and preserve the cultural heritage of the Rohingya people. > The collection covers a vast array of items, from models of vernacular architecture, boats and furniture to domestic objects made of pottery and basketry, intricate woodwork, ingenious toy-making and colourful paper-crafts. > Needlework was identified as a common skill among Rohingya women, so a facilitating team was set up with the skills to specifically focus on the production of textile artworks. From individual pieces to collectively-made large scale pieces, these artworks are a portrait of Rohingya identity and traditional domestic life as seen by Rohingya women. > Through this creative platform, Rohingya artisans and artists share their struggles, their expectations and desires, and their efforts to find meaning in their existence. Above all, the arts and crafts of the Rohingya people seek to illuminate their human condition which, fuelled by imagination, allows them to grow and stretch beyond their physical boundaries into the imaginary realm, a place of contemplation, self-care, hope and celebration. > Memories are the key not to the past but to the future.