The historic port town of Suakin: past and current contexts

‘The historic port town of Suakin: past and current contexts’ illustrates Suakin’s fascinating story and historical and cultural significance. In English and Arabic, the exhibition provides a summary of the issues affecting this heritage and what is being done to address them, fostering public understanding and support towards an example of Sudan’s cultural heritage and its current and future state of conservation. Mallinson Architects designed the exhibition towards ongoing research and as a major feature of the Sudan Cultural Heritage and Museums Festival in 2014. The exhibition has been displayed in Sudan’s National Museum in Khartoum, the Red Sea Festival in Port Sudan, and has provided a major resource for a number of events and stakeholder activities towards Suakin’s conservation and development planning. The exhibition is currently being updated for inclusion in Suakin’s new local museum.

The exhibition design utilised a number of drawings and images from Jean Pierre Greenlaw’s book ‘The Coral Buildings of Suakin’, the Greenlaw Archive now kept in the British Museum (Greenlaw’s work provides the most complete architectural survey of Suakin’s historic buildings, and studies of Suakin’s lifestyle and culture), and photographic references from the Sudan Archive at Durham University. Further material was contributed through surveys and studies by Mallinson Architects and other researchers.