Overview
Sharjah Art Foundation has launched an oral history project to learn more about the social and urban fabric of Sharjah’s historic Al Mureijah, Al Shoyoukh and Al Shuwaiheen areas. As there is little written or recorded documentation of the significant transformations these areas have undergone over the past decades, Sharjah Art Foundation will use the research gathered in this project to help compile and preserve an historic overview of the old quarter. As part of this project, people over the age of 60 who have lived or worked in these neighbourhoods are invited to share their stories about life before, during and after the successive phases of change and development.
Interviews will be conducted with a diverse range of people who broadly reflect the area’s inhabitants over time. Participants will include individuals with a tribal lineage distinct to the Arabian Gulf as well as those with families from other regional and international backgrounds who settled in Sharjah between the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, through to the present day.
If you would like to contribute to our research by sharing your stories or the names of potential participants, the research team would be happy to hear from you. We are also hoping for connections to any relatives, friends or acquittances that fit the above criteria or have direct ties to the inhabitants (children, spouses or siblings) who frequented these areas.
Potential contributors can contact the department directly on research@sharjahart.org.