Oral History Workshop
OMHI deploys the power of photographs to gather memories of construction work. It does so through analogue methods such as oral history and participatory workshops (phase 1) and by provoking interaction on social media (digital methods, phase 2). We kicked off this process of collaborative historiography with an oral history workshop conducted by architectural historian, curator and independent researcher Ishita Shah. Ishita provided training in oral history, particularly with regards to ethics and interviewing across socio-cultural divides. Practical exercises conducted over five days focused on obtaining permissions, questionnaire preparation, recording the tangible and intangible in oral history, and relations between oral history and archival documents. Teachers and students collected oral history interviews of different individuals like architects, contractors, businessmen and labourers on site. The sessions were from August 31st 2023 - September 5th 2023.