Archiving in Community: Workshops in Collaboration with An Việt Archives

AVA workshops at ESEA Community Centre. Photo by Joyce Mak. Courtesy of An Việt Archives

We open our public programme for 2026 with two archiving workshops developed in collaboration with An Việt Archives (AVA), the largest known British-Vietnamese archive. Together, the workshops explore memory, sound, and community through imaginative and personal approaches. Taking place in an intimate setting, these workshops foreground reflection, hands-on engagement, and collective sharing.

Both events are conceived as open-ended and community-driven, with no prescribed outcomes. Participants will hear directly from members of AVA about their practice of community archiving, learn about the everyday lives of Vietnamese and Southeast Asian refugees in Britain, particularly through our shared neighbourhood of Hackney, East London. These histories form a starting point for dialogue across time, place, and communities across boundaries.

Across the two workshops, the archive is approached not as a static repository, but as a living practice shaped by care, listening, and imagination. From working with archival materials and personal memories to listening deeply to family sound archives, participants are invited to consider how archives are made, held, and activated in relation to diasporic experience.

Free entry, spaces limited, sign up here.

Access Information

Both events take place on the ground floor with step-free access in our multi-purpose programme space, with a fully accessible, all-gender bathroom.

Please feel free to inquire with info@asymmetryart.org if you would like to discuss any access needs. Please kindly be advised that requests should be made one week in advance of the event, and we will try our best to make accommodations subject to availability.