Museum of Ours

At its core, the Museum offers a peaceful and positive platform for people to gather together and learn about history. In this manner, it began in January of 2019 when I organized a guided tour of the Erbil Civilization Museum. At the time, I was troubled that there was a gap in the type of content that was available. Everything felt hyper-biased and not only anti-peace but somehow designed intentionally to provoke outrage and exclusion.

However, the beginnings of the concept of a Museum were already in place. I had been collecting already for about eight months.

When the idea of a Museum first began, it was not intended to be a physical place but a sort of roaming project. Here is an early description,

Museum of Ours is a grassroots movement to describe Kurdistan, Assyria, Turkmeneli, Ezidkhan, and the lives of minorities including Shabakis, Kakaiis, Jews, and ‘small worlds’ within the broader community.

The concept is about description. And an early version of the mission statement,

Museum of Ours takes place in Erbil and the broader Kurdistan Region, Nineveh Plains, and federal Iraq. The goal is to enrich our community with an intellectualized, theorized, compelling, and combined multi-ethnic understanding of our land, our selves, and one other. Efforts should disempower prevailing themes of outrage, misinformation, and exclusion.

Initially, the idea of calling it Museum of Ours was intended to bring an air of cultural authority but also promote inclusiveness. Importantly, these activities preceded the idea of establishing Foundation of Ours and its dedicated religious activities.