Discover the newly awarded projects for 2025!

EMKP is excited to announce the 21 new projects we have funded for 2025! With these, the EMKP now supports 125 projects with fieldwork in 59 different countries.

This year we awarded 6 Large Grants, 14 Small Grants, and 1 Legacy Digitization Grant. Our panel was impressed with the quality and diversity of project submissions received this year, making for our most competitive application cycle to date. We would like to extend our gratitude to all those who applied and reviewed applications, and to give a warm welcome to our new cohort of EMKP grantees.

Closing the roof of the longhouse in Yeni, 14 August 2024. Photo credit: Jaap Timmer.

Aruba mask, detail of the face. CN Nueva Unión, Quebrada Espejo, río Chambira, Peru. 2018. Photo credit: Fabiano Emanuele.

Nzahki (spirits) cut from sheets of amate de mora. Photo credit: James Ojascastro.

Modern day tolögu from Bawömataluo Village. Photo credit: Ahmad Ginanjar Purnawibawa, 2024.

Master boatbuilder Wilson Ospina Riocampos working on the construction of a canoe. Honda, Tolima, Colombia. Photo credit: Juan David Sarmiento Rodríguez.

Inka khipu with tassels. Photo credit: Sabine Hyland.

Traditional house in Nunkiní with stone foundations, wattle-and-daub walls, and a thatched roof (Calkiní region, Campeche). Photo credit: C. Gillot, 2022.

Ethnographic rush basket of Selk’nam or Yagan origin. Museo Salesiano “Maggiorino Borgatello” (Punta Arenas, Chile). Photo credit: Raquel Piqué, 2023.

Men setting up hunting camp, Namunkurá village, MT, Brazil. Photo credit: Pio Tsimhoropupu Butsé.

Among the global reach represented in these projects, the EMKP will be funding its first projects in Samoa, Argentina, Angola, Madagascar, and Kyrgyzstan. The range of material knowledge practices covered by EMKP projects has also continued to grow, with the current round including transhumant routes in Angola, living on the water in Iraq and Ghana, Peruvian khipu writing, and dung construction in the Kyrgyz Republic.

This cohort encompasses countless ways of living in and engaging with the world—among others—games, music, fashion, disguises, hunting, fishing, writing, painting, papermaking, traveling, and staying put. Each in their own way, these projects expand the scope of ‘material knowledge’ and underscore the many ways it is threatened. See below for a complete list of the projects awarded for 2025.

Dashavatara relief (varaha avatara) on local heritage architecture. Terracotta relief Madan Mohan Temple 1694 CE. Photo credit: Ayan Kundu.

Tsik nak was traditionally used for woodblock printing and writing. Photo credit: Kalzang Dorjee Bhutia.

A woman from an inland farming community walks several kilometers at dawn from her village to the Friday market, where she sells her agricultural products or trades them for fish brought by the Vezo people. Photo credit: Maurizio Borriello.

Fresh cut sheep dung blocks in Üch-Ompol area. Photo credit: Talgat Dzhumashev.

The building of a traditional Samoan house is rich with ritual, culminating in the most important of all—the dedication ceremony, celebrating the structure’s completion and readiness for communal life. Photo credit: Steven Charles Percival.

An adaptation of the Indigenous Nzulezo stilt house which combines sawn timber and raffia palm sticks. Photo credit: Gideon Asmah.

Smoothing the mud wall surface. Photo credit: Gauri Bharat.

A wooden drum frame in process. Photo credit: Delight Jiboye.

Marsh residents during fishing time, casting their nets to catch fish to sell to traders at a place called Al-Safateen. Photo credit: Ali Al-Askary.

Hambal village seen from a high vantage point, with houses arranged in tiers along the hillside and terraces serving as shared community spaces. Photo credit: Rahul Hans.

Cows in transhumance in Gambos, Huíla, 2020. Photo credit: Ruy Llera Blanes.

Cleaning Small Buddha Image after Casting at Goednapakhun Foundry, Chang Lo Rd, Chiang Mai (1984). Photo credit: Tristram Riley-Smith.

LEGACY DIGITIZATION GRANT:

Traditional Image-Casting in Thailand
PI: Dr. Tristram Riley-Smith
Location of Research: Thailand

LARGE GRANTS:

Documenting the making and uses of Bàtá, a Yoruba sacred drum ensemble (Southwestern Nigeria)
PI: Kolawole Adeniyi
Location of Research: Ilora, Oyo State, Nigeria

From Earth to Inhabited Space: Life Cycle of Mud Plastering in the Tribal Agricultural Landscape of Jharkhand
PI: Dr. Gauri Bharat
Location of Research: Kolhan Division, Jharkhand, India

A Stick in Time: Documenting Traditional Stilt Construction of the Nzulezo Community, Ghana
PI: Carlien Donkor
Location of Research: Old Nzulezo and Beyin, Ghana

The Reeds Kingdom: Documenting Iraq’s Marshland Communities and their Endangered Practices
PI: Dhiaa Kareem Ali
Location of Research: Al-Chibayish and Al-Huwaizah marshes, Iraq

Mapping Threatened Transhumant Routes in Southwestern Angola
PI: Ruy Llera Blanes
Location of Research: Namibe, Huíla, and Cunene provinces, Angola

Documenting Traditional Samoan Architecture
PI: Steven Charles Percival
Location of Research: Tiapapata, Sa’anapu, and Vaitele-uta, Samoa

SMALL GRANTS:

Traditional Construction Systems and Indigenous Materials in the Pir Panjal Region of the Lower Himalayas
PI: Rahul Bhola
Location of Research: Doda, Jammu and Kashmir, India

Documenting the Endangered Canoe-Building Knowledge of the Vezo-Tanalana People of Southwest Madagascar
PI: Maurizio Borriello
Location of Research: Ampasilava and Andavadoaka, Southwest Madagascar

As Gods come to Play: Preserving the Legacy of the Endangered Dashavatara Cards of Bishnupur
PI: Dr. Shreyashi Chaudhuri
Location of Research: Bishnupur, Bankura district, West Bengal, India

Etchings from the Land: Traditional Ink-Making Practices in Sikkim
PI: Kalzang Dorjee Bhutia and Alexandra Gillespie
Location of Research: Sikkim, India

The Dung Corrals of the Ak-Say Valley, Kyrgyz Republic
PI: Talgat Dzhumashev
Location of Research: Ak-Say Valley, At-Bashy District, Naryn Region, Kyrgyz Republic

The Changing Faces of Aruba: Collaborative Project of Documentation of a Mask of the Urarina People, Peruvian Amazon
PI: Emanuele Fabiano
Location of Research: Peruvian Amazon

Material knowledge system associated to the hunting with fire of the A’uwé Xavante people in Central Brazil
PI: Ana Lúcia Ferraz
Location of Research: Aldeia Namunkurá, Terra Indígena São Marcos, Mato Grosso, Brazil

Weaving ancestral knowledge: Basketry digitalization from the native peoples of Tierra del Fuego
PI: Anna Franch Bach
Location of Research: Argentina and Chile

Stone Stories: Documenting the Practices, Knowledge, and Skills of Stone Masonry Building among the Yucatec Maya of Campeche (Mexico)
PI: Céline Gillot
Location of Research: Calkiní Region, State of Campeche, Mexico

Knotted Survivors: Documenting the Ancient Khipu Traditions of Jucul, Peru
PI: Sabine Hyland
Location of Research: Jucul, Peru

Nautical Atlas of Magdalena Medio’s Traditional Vessels
PI: Antonio Jaramillo Arango
Location of Research: Magdalena Medio, Colombia

From cloth to codices: investigating the purported kinship between two endangered fiber arts traditions in Mexico
PI: James Ojacastro
Location of Research: San Pablito (Puebla), Nahá and Lacanhá Chansayab (Chiapas), Mexico

Documentation of the endangered material knowledge system of Tolögu (Nias sword) from Bawömataluo village in South Nias, Indonesia
PI: Ahmad Ginanjar Purnawibawa
Location of Research: Bawömataluo village, South Nias

Securing Cosmic Balance in an Uncertain World: Documenting Asmat Longhouse (Jee) Construction in Papua, Indonesia
PI: Jaap Timmer
Location of Research: Asmat region, West Papua, Indonesia

Top banner image:Basket weaving by Margarita Maldonado, Selk’nam artisan, writer, and ancestral educator. Río Grande (Argentina). Photo credit: Pablo Saldivia.

Announcing the 2025 Cohort of EMKP Grant Projects!

Discover the newly awarded projects for 2025!

LEGACY DIGITIZATION GRANT:

LARGE GRANTS:

SMALL GRANTS:

The Rohingya Recipes and Food Practices of stateless Rohingya community in camps of Bangladesh »