The Kurdish Digital Archive, launched in May, is part of the Digital Archive of the Middle East (DAME) project hosted by the UK’s University of Exeter.

The DAME project is a collaboration between the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter and the Institute for International and Area Studies at China’s Tsinghua University. 

The goal of the archive is to digitize and make accessible key Kurdish materials from the University of Exeter’s archival collections, as well as to collaborate with other Kurdish archives and institutions in fostering joint research, the sharing of archival resources, and the preservation and dissemination of Kurdish cultural heritage.

“In this project, key archival materials at the University of Exeter, including materials from the Omar Sheikhmous Archive and the Chris Kutschera Archive, were digitized and made accessible via the DAME website with metadata in English, Kurdish, and Arabic,” Farangis Ghaderi, research fellow and principal investigator of the Kurdish component of the DAME project, told Kurdistan Chronicle. 

“The project also creates a platform for connecting and collaborating with Kurdish archival centers and initiatives in Kurdistan, such as the Zheen Center for Documentation and Research and the Kurdish Heritage Institute, with whom the University of Exeter has signed memoranda of understanding.”

“Through this project we hope to share archival resources and foster joint research with other Kurdish archive initiatives and promote the preservation and dissemination of Kurdish cultural heritage,” she said. 

The archive includes the Chris Kutschera Archive, a collection of photographs compiled by the French photographer Edith Maubec and her writer husband Paul that includes thousands of images taken in the Kurdish regions of Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkiye between 1970 and the early 2000s. 

“These include intimate photographs of individuals such as Jalal Talabani, various members of the Barzani family, Sami Abdul Raman, Franso Hariri, and the poet Hajar Sharafkandi, as well as scenes from Kurdish villages, camps and cultural life, images of political meetings and delegations, and so on,” she said.

“In addition to this, the University has taken over the management of the Kurdistan Photo Library, a continually expanding digital photographic archive established by Edith Maubec and dedicated to Kurdistan and the Kurdish people.”